All poll numbers a year out from a presidential election have to be taken with a healthy grain of salt, but a recent Quinnipiac poll shows some surprisingly good news for President Obama.
Their poll, conducted from October 25th to 31st, shows Obama’s approval rating at a shockingly high 47% up from 41% at the beginning of the month. His disapproval rating is down to 49% from 55% – and his lead against Republican candidates remains steady or in some cases widening.
What could explain this type of change?
It’s not the economy since unemployment numbers from last month were stagnant. It can’t be the death of Quadaffi, since that wasn’t going to move the needle 6% points over the course of a month. The pollsters seem to believe that Obama’s new ‘fightin’ mad stance may have boosted his numbers a bit, but I’m not quite buying that.
I think that Obama’s numbers have been muted over the last 4 or 5 months based on the horrible debt ceiling debacle as well as the belief on the part of many voters that the GOP might have a solid alternative. With the debt battle in hindsight and realizing that we will have an election withWhichMITT vs. Obama, Americans are simply become more comfortable with the choice they already made. When you have a choice between two sorry options, sometimes you just stick with what you know.
This article originally appeared at Politic365.com.