Pollster.com

This is a nice improvement for Obama and the Democrats since the last (disastrous) NBC/WSJ poll.

-Obama approval +2

-Handling of the oil spill +20 (!)

-Congressional Preference Dems +3

Also of interest is that the Tea Party is now underwater (-4). Interesting that Obama's approval mirrors the PPP poll released earlier that some were bashing.

*Emily- Positive/Negatives for the Republicans should be 24/46 not 36.

I have to call foul on this one. Look at one of the last questions.

A lot of people are unable to get out and vote for many reasons. Did you happen to vote in last November's
election for president? (IF “YES,” ASK:) For whom did you vote––Barack Obama, John McCain, or
someone else?
Yes, Voted
Voted for Barack Obama ................ 40
Voted for John McCain ................... 32
Voted for someone else ................. 6
Not sure .......................................... 4
No, Did Not Vote ............................. 17

40% to 32%?? How is that representative of either party?

@Freddy

Not everyone in the country voted in 2008. Among those who did vote, however, Obama won by >7%, which is represented in those numbers. What's there to "call foul" about?

Because history would tell you that turnout in 10 will be lower than 08. Yet Obama is under-performing by 13% and McCain by 15%. I don't think any historical statistical analysis would support this kind of sampling.

This is a poll of all adults, not just likely voters.

It is, but you're starting to draw conclusions about elections based on it, given party preferences. Approval is one thing, but trying to draw conclusions beyond that would be misleading.

I think we need to toss the results from the question about who you voted for "last November" for president.

If the polling organization doesn't even know what year it is how much faith can you have in them?

I was initially amazed that 4% didn't know if they voted. Then I thought maybe Freddy typo'ed the question. But no, they really did ask who you voted for last year, which obviously means Nov 2009.

There is some chance that the public perception of BO did suffer during the BP mess more than many of us thought, myself included.

With regards to the 2008 vote, it should be noted that this is an 'adults" sample. Also, the spread (+8) is consistent with the actual result (+7.3).

But they probably should have pushed the "voted for someone else" / "don't know" people because there definitely are too many in those two groups. It's definitely not the best of samples.

iVote. The GOP led by 3 pts in the last poll and Obama was farther underwater. That said, this polled only adults, not ven RV or LV's. In a midterm election where turnout and winning independents is even more key than a presidential election this poll does not bode well for either parties. The unreported part of the poll is the GOP now has solid leads on the deficit, taxes, HC, spending control, getting out of the recession and fixing the economy. This bodes extremely well for the GOP, especially if the screen was RVs or LVs.

@gabe What about the fact that the GOP's net negatives are twice that of the Dems? People are going to have a difficult time pulling the lever for a party that they really don't care for.

@ iVote

If the voter intensity disparity continues, then it won't matter. Even this poll shows that among those most interested in the election, they prefer a GOP controlled Congress, 50%-39%. The only problem is that this is down from a 21% margin for the GOP from last month.

If minorities and young people don't come out and vote, it won't matter that PPP and NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling is showing that Democrats and Republicans are even in the generic ballot in August. All indications are that Republican voters are much more animated this cycle. We saw it in Missouri and we saw it again last night in Colorado, where 70,000 more people voted in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate than the Democratic primary. And here's an example at my local level. I live in Memphis, Tennessee. We had our state and Federal primaries as well as county elections last Thursday. This county (Shelby County) is heavily Democratic. Shelby County went 63% for Barack Obama in 2008. Last Thursday, because of a large Republican turnout and weak turnout among black voters, Republicans swept all nine county-wide races on the ballot (County Mayor, Sheriff, etc) here. If the voter intensity continues to favor the GOP and independent voters continue to lean that way, the Republicans will have no problem picking up 35+ seats in the House, despite their unpopularity. People don't like Republicans, but they don't like Democrats either and they especially don't like the Federal government under the complete control of one party.

Not sure why primary turnout is a factor.

Kentucky Senate primary turnout from Democrats was almost twice that of Republicans.

Do you think that will transfer to the general election? Even if Jack Conway does win, it will be by a very small margin.

THE GOP AGENDA IS..CUT TAXES FOR THE RICH..(2) CUT DOMESTIC SPENDING (3) START WARS WITH ARABS (4) TAKE AWAY CITIZENSHIP FROM LATINO KIDS!!!

Senator Reid was absolutley correct''Why would any Hispanic in his right mind vote for any Republican...The GOP is full of monsters who wants to take this Country back to the 60s....

"This is a poll of all adults, not just likely voters."
iVote: note that the question on the generic ballot for 2010 and other questions related to the 2010 election were only asked of registered voters. All adults when the opinions of all adults are important, registered voters when those who will vote is important.

I agree with Melvin 100 percent about Harry Reid. Why would any hispanic vote for a Republican? I mean after the comments that his opponent has made nothing would compare to that insanity. Of course Fox news will probably use that comment against Harry Reid, but they should ask the question, when you have someone at the border rounding people up, threatening to stop and question you with the Arizona law, and taking away the 14th ammendment, I think that even Fox news will drop the issue after awhile.

I would love to see the Demographics of Fox news audience. I bet 90 percent of their regular viewers if not more are white.

The take away I have from this poll is that it confirms my thesis that this is a year of extreme volatility. In a environment when Democrats and Congress are loathed, the group getting the lowest ratings are Republicans! This is unprecedented, because the party that is on the outs usually rises as the other falters. Just look back to '06 and '08.

Yet, I do believe that Republicans currently are favored by the majority of Americans. But this support is as substantial as an overnght ice slick on a VT pond in November. It is clear that people are angry and choosing Republicans in August as a default choice to the Democrats. Could this continue? Sure. But unless the Republicans develop a coherent and positive message ( impoossible imo given their need to kowtow to the Teaparty and the Limbaugh/Beck crowd), they will be vulnerable on two fronts: Democrats making strong individual runs against their whack job candidates,( Comparable to the Senate candidates in KY,NV,FL,CO, etc.) and the independents coming to their senses on November 2 and realizing the Republican emperor has no clothes.

Everything is in flux. There is a 50/50 shot at Republicans gaining 50 seats, or underperforming historical trends and winning less than 20. It is totally unpredicatable.

Interesting:

"The GOP has a HUGE generic-ballot edge in the South (52%-31%), but it doesn't lead anywhere else. In the Northeast, Dems have a 55%-30% edge; in the Midwest, they lead 49%-38%; and in the West, it's 44%-43%."

Nancy Pelosi a 21% approval and Harry Reid a stellar 11%. Wow.

Compared to when Barack Obama became President—do you think that the country is better off, worse off or in about the same place?

31 better, 40 worse. Ouch.

Q20 shows the future of Obama's approval. He is underwater on EVERYTHING except a meaningless race relations question where he is plus one.

"I would love to see the Demographics of Fox news audience. I bet 90 percent of their regular viewers if not more are white."

FL&P: You might want to look at some of the Pew People and the Press surveys that look at where Americans get most of their news and the various crosstabs associated with them.

Fox obviously gets a more conservative and Republican leaning audience - but given the political leanings of the audience they do very well in terms of reaching a good distribution by age. They do not do well in attracting an African-American audience (one report indicated that only 1.4% of their audience were African-Americans).

"They do not do well in attracting an African-American audience (one report indicated that only 1.4% of their audience were African-Americans)."

Gee, I wonder why.

Gee, I wonder why.

Why do you think that is Paleo?

What's interesting about Fox is the average age. Most people who watch Fox are geezers...around 65. I find that pretty shocking, actually. Then again I guess not having to get to work in the morning gives one the proper amount of time to contemplate Glenn Beck's highly complex maps and charts (to figure out the latest Nazi-like US Gov conspiracy theory he's pushing... in between his gold commercials).

"Why do you think that is Paleo?"

Perhaps it's its recurring series, "Scary Black People."

Must have missed that one. They must have ran commercials for it tirelessly on MSNBC and CNN.

Back to the poll, its interesting that it was a 100% cell phone poll.

The Republican party, and Fox News strategy for the Midterms is: Scare the hell out of White old people!! The agenda for the GOP has been..Use Hispanics to scare Whites...Use Blacks to scare Whites...Use Arabs to scare Whites...That is the Republican agenda for the Midterms.

No melvin, Obama is the one scaring the hell out of the majority of Americans.

please note I said Americans. I didn't mention races like you always do.

"What's interesting about Fox is the average age. Most people who watch Fox are geezers...around 65.'

tjampel: I saw the report that the median age of Fox News viewers was 65 but I think that information is bogus (apparently made up by a partisan writer). I think data from Neilsen are more valid and appear to show a much younger age distribution than that.

Fox viewers are 80% racist,and 20% normal people,that's why Fox always try to scare White people out of they're brains,but i really do believe most Fox news commentators are not racist,they're just out to make a buck,and the sad thing about it all,it has made them all very rich.

I would have thought they were 100% racist. You're slipping melvin.

Here are the most recent available day's cable news ratings. For Aug 10.

Fox always beats the combined numbers for CNN and MSNBC in every tracked demo and at any time of the day.

Aug 10 was actually a relatively weak day for Fox.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/11/cable-news-ratings-for-tuesday-august-10-2010/59746#more-59746

It must be all the hot looking female anchors on Fox. I, personally, like to watch (eye)Candy Crowley and (turkey jerky)Andrea Mitchell, but, according to the ratings, that's just me.

What really does get me about the question of Obama's 4 years in the senate not qualifying him to be president and all the garbage I got from the righties, is this; Righties, why do you even allow Sarah Palin to be considered a presidential contender when Palin was only a half term governor? Can't you at least find someone more experienced than that?

Even Romney was only governor for 4 years, but if he runs against Obama and is the nominee that will be 8 years of federal government elected experience vs 4 years of state government experience.

And the worst night network newscast gets twice of Faux's primetime audience. So, if viewership is what matters, Faux only represents a relatively small portion of the overall news watching audience. With all the right-wingers I'm constantly told are in the country, you'd figure they'd do better than that.

Exactly Paleo. If Fox ever gets a broadcast news sized audience, Dems would not be able to elect a dog catcher.

But broadcast news ratings have been declining for years, as well as all the leftist print rags. Fox is growing.

Nice to see you admit Faux is nothing but a propaganda vehicle for the Republican party.

Cable news is now standard. If you're able to watch network news, you're also able to watch cable news. Not being an network is no longer an excuse for Faux.

Only 65% of people who have TVs have cable Paleo. Its not apples-to-apples, at least Nielsen doesn't believe so. And since they are the gold standard in TV ratings, i tend to believe them over some ideologically driven online poster.

All news is propaganda and ideologically driven. Network, cable, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, PBS, BBC. All of it. Just as you say that Fox is a propaganda vehicle for the GOP, the networks along with CNN and MSNBC is a propaganda vehicle for the Demos.

And abc, nbc and cbs are not propaganda?

Fox is way more accurate about facts. Those others are build on constant lies. The left could not hold any power without lying. The left organizes and coordinates their lies, and have done so for decades. The right are a bunch of naive newbies when it comes to propaganda and messaging. the left are grizzled veterans.

You are the perfect example of a victim of left mindfuck job, Paleo.

Why else would you vote against your and your country's interests. Assuming you vote.

Really, the difference between Fox and the rest is Fox just wants to maximize profits. They've found an underserved niche, and trying to milk it for all its worth. Murdock is not a conservative guy. Ailes is, but he is only there as long as he produces profits. Murdock would go communist, if he could get an extra nickel.

Abc's, Cnn's and the rest of leftist media are willing to lose money in order to get their message out. At least that's what's been happening so far. They won't abandon their lying loosing formula. It's more than money for them.

"Just as you say that Fox is a propaganda vehicle for the GOP, the networks along with CNN and MSNBC is a propaganda vehicle for the Demos."

Classic propaganda technique. Justify you bias by claiming everyone else is biased. Won't washed. It's like claiming your fair and balanced when you're anything but.

"Murdock is not a conservative guy." LOL. Murdock might not be, but Murdoch certainly is.

Murdochhh is not a conservative. He almost endorsed Bobama in 08, until he got talked out of it by Ailes. He owns all kind of media all over the globe. Much of it is leftist. Is Fox broadcast network conservative? Which shows? Family guy?

He is only about maximizing profits.

Classic propaganda technique. Justify you bias by claiming everyone else is biased. Won't washed. It's like claiming your fair and balanced when you're anything but.

LOL. So you're saying MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and CNN are not biased? Wow! Obviously you fell HARD for their propaganda. Too bad. Lesser minds usually are the first. That would make one person out of 320 million.

Nice to know that the only show that beats the daily show (2.3M viewers) is O'Rielly. I have to admit there is some sick pleasure in knowing that a whole bunch of religious conservatives throwing money at a broadcast organization that turns around and uses it to develop things like the Family Guy and those reality shows of 20 bikini clad women fighting over the attention of a rich bachelor, etc.

Because clearly if you are conservative, you don't have a sense of humor in addition to liking to see your women barefoot, pregnant, wearing what amounts to a burka, while in the kitchen. Liberals have some funny stereotypes.

Field Marshall: "Back to the poll, its interesting that it was a 100% cell phone poll"

I haven't seen this responded to, so I'd like to point out that you misread the cell phone question. The "Do you have a landline?" question was asked only of cell phone respondents. The poll included both landline and cell phone users.

FM- I like how you always have to jump to the harshest interpretation, but I guess it make life more entertaining. You lump in many more conservatives than the narrow number I referenced. But to be more specific, I'm thinking of people like the Parents TV Council, founded by the founder of Media Research Center (monitors liberal bias). They ironically found that FOX is the most anti-religious broadcaster and in 1999 launched a campaign against WWE (however probably support the candidacy).

And I never said conservatives don't watch the daily show and have a sense of humor, but judging by O'Rielly's comments they must be the pot smoking conservatives. Just that any discussion of cable news broadcasts should include the daily show...