PRINCETON, NJ -- In the first Â鶹´«Ã½AV Poll job approval rating of his administration, President Barack Obama receives a 68% approval rating from Americans.
The survey was conducted from Wednesday through Friday, Jan. 21-23, spanning Obama's first three full days on the job. Only 12% of Americans disapprove of how he has performed thus far, while 21% have no opinion.
Obama's 68% approval score is on the high end of the . The low percentage of Americans disapproving of his performance is fairly typical for new presidents -- although Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both started with much higher public disapproval.
A more thorough discussion of Obama's initial job approval ratings and the historical context for them will be published on gallup.com on Monday, Jan. 26.
Â鶹´«Ã½AV is tracking Obama's job approval rating daily, and will be reporting it daily on gallup.com on the basis of three-day rolling averages.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,591 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan. 21-23, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
