What Does President Obama’s Low Approval Rating Tell Us About 2016?

by Gerard Emershaw

According to the most recent Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating currently sits at 45%. Since it seems that it is never too early in political circles to ponder the next presidential election, it is worth considering what President Obama’s approval rating might reveal about the 2016 election.

Since Gallup began polling on presidential approval, there have been four other presidents—Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—who had two terms. FDR served three full terms and part of a fourth, but since there were no term limits and nobody could have known when his last term would be, he will not be considered. Harry S. Truman served one full term and most of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fourth term following FDR’s death. While Truman could have run again, he chose not to. Therefore, he will be considered in order to enlarge the sample size.

Despite the fact that President Truman left office with a Gallup approval rating just over 30%, at this stage of his presidency, his approval rating stood at roughly 70%. At this stage of the second term, Eisenhower’s approval rating stood at over 70%, Reagan’s near 65%, Clinton’s over 60%, and Bush’s over 50%. Thus, President Obama’s approval rating at this point is far lower than any of his recent predecessors at the same point of their presidencies.

While each of these five presidents had approval ratings early in the second year of their second terms that were well above 50%, this did not necessarily indicate success for their parties in the next presidential election. In fact, in only one of these five cases did the president’s party retain the White House in the next election. This may not indicate anything statistical that deep analysis of approval rating figures might reveal. It seems that in recent decades when one political party has held power for two terms, it is likely that the other political party will take the White House from them in the next election. Given that Eisenhower and Clinton left office with high approval ratings yet Nixon and Gore did not succeed them as POTUS indicates that perhaps voter fatigue with a single party plays an important role. The only case among these where a political party retained the White House following a two term president was when George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan in 1988. This might have more to do with how poor a candidate Michael Dukakis was than anything about either political party or about Mr. Bush. Dukakis was a leftist at a time when the nation had moved right of center. It was not until Bill Clinton—who was a more conservative “New Democrat”—that the Democratic Party again found a winning formula. In fact, despite the distorted rhetoric of GOP pundits, Jimmy Carter was also a very conservative Democrat. Thus, it had been decades since a Democrat as progressive as President Obama had held the White House.

In earlier eras before presidential term limits and before modern mass media, two term presidents tended to be followed by a successor from their own party. This was true in the case of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, and Teddy Roosevelt (who like Truman technically only served one term of his own but filled nearly an entire term of his deceased predecessor). This was often due to one party being so dominant nationally that the opposition party was barely viable. This was true in each of these cases and was also true from 1932–1952 when the RINO GOP failed to stand for anything and hence just allowed FDR’s progressives to rule the nation.

As far as 2016 is concerned, all this raises an intriguing question. Is the GOP a viable national party? Sure, there are “red” states where Republican Senators and Governors are elected, and there are “red” districts where Republican Congressmen are assured of victory. But can a Republican still prevail in the Electoral College? If the GOP is still viable, the party should prevail in 2016 based solely upon “voter fatigue” with the Democrats. While anything is possible, it is unlikely that President Obama will leave office with a high approval rating in 2016. This indicates that he is likely to be like Truman or the second Bush and will probably be followed by a president of the opposition party. If President Obama and the Democrats do not have a much higher approval rating by the 2016 election and yet still manage to retain the White House, then it is strong evidence that the GOP has gone the way of the Whigs. What is certain is that the best way for the GOP to create a self-fulfilling prophecy by which they are as doomed as the Whigs is for them to try to out-progressive the progressives. This was not a winning recipe for Herbert Hoover in his re-election bid against FDR. It was not a winning recipe for Willkie, Dewey, McCain, or Romney. Fiscal responsibility, preservation of civil liberties, a less belligerent foreign policy than the bitterly ironic policy of the current Nobel Peace Prize laureate-in-chief, a willingness to reform immigration policy in a way that defends the borders, and a less bigoted attitude towards women and racial minorities. That is a potential winning formula for the GOP if it is still viable as a national party. The nation will never elect a RINO fake Democrat when it can elect the real thing instead.