The polls agree: President Barack Obama is likable. The question is whether he’s likable enough to get reelected.
As much as any other factor five months before Election Day, this is one that bedevils both presidential campaigns: How much can Obama count on his relatively high personal favorability ratings to buttress him against some of the worst economic and political conditions any recent incumbent president has faced?
Democratic and Republican pollsters see the numbers in sharply and probably irreconcilably divergent terms. Right now, it’s not clear who is right; if it were, we might already know which candidate would emerge the winner of the November election.
The answer is elusive in part because the historical record is mixed on whether personal popularity can save a president. Even some Democrats suggest favorability may be only the equivalent of a tie breaker in a close race — just enough to tip voters in his direction in the far-from-certain event that everything else is deadlocked.
Read more at Politico
