Obama Approval Rating Hits 50 Percent In ABC ... - Business Insider

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Though two weekend polls showed mixed results for the president,?Barack Obama reached an important mark in both an?ABC/Washington Post poll?released Sunday night and a?CNN poll?released Friday. His approval rating hit 50 percent in both of them.?

The 50-percent threshold is generally considered the point at which incumbents are safely re-elected.?It's the first time that Obama has hit the mark in the?ABC/Post?poll since April, and he briefly fell down to 46 percent in that time span.

Obama's job approval on specific issues paints a little less rosy picture, however. He's stuck at a 44 percent approval rating on the economy in the ABC/Post poll, though that's up from just 42 percent in May. And in the CNN poll, he's trailing presumptive Republican?Mitt Romney?by a 7-point gap on which candidate would best handle the economy.

By a 13-point margin, Romney also handily beats Obama on the issue of tackling the deficit. The economy and deficit are almost always ranked Nos. 1 and 2 on voter importance.?

Nevertheless, the 50-percent approval mark?is a significant one, as Gallup managing editor Jeffrey M. Jones explained recently:

The 50% approval mark is significant because post-World War II incumbent presidents who have been above 50% job approval on Election Day were easily re-elected.?Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have more uncertain re-election prospects. Historically, two presidents below 50% in their final approval rating before the election -- George W. Bush and Harry Truman -- won, and three, Gerald?Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush, lost.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-approval-rating-hits-50-percent-in-abc-cnn-polls-2012-8

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