April 1, 2013
When tracking President Obama’s job approval on a daily basis, people sometimes get so caught up in the day-to-day fluctuations that they miss the bigger picture. To look at the longer-term trends, Rasmussen Reports compiles the numbers on a full-month basis, and the results can be seen in the graphics below.
For the month of March, the president's Total Job Approval Rating fell another point from 53% in February to 52%. In December, it reached 56%, the highest level since May 2009. Prior to the election, that rating had remained in the narrow range of 44% to 49% for two years straight.
In March, 47% disapproved of the president's performance, up a point from the month before. The number who disapproved of Obama's performance stayed in the low to mid-50s from August 2009 until the election. That figure dropped to the low 40s in November but has inched up since.
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night. The monthly numbers in this article are based on approximately 15,000 interviews each month with likely voters. The margin of sampling error is less than +/- 1 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.