Although Obama was never behind in the hunt for electoral votes, Hurricane Sandy added several points at the end. And, after three years of an undetectable recovery, the last three months before the election saw upticks that weren’t missed, especially from a surging housing recovery. His approval ratings are back to the mid-50-percent range, not seen by him since his first year.
A strong finish to a mean campaign propelled him into a successful New Year’s fiscal cliff confrontation with Republicans. Since the first of the year, he’s escalated the stand-down from Afghanistan, announced an aggressive agenda for gun control and is making immigration with a likely path to citizenship a second term priority. He’s also won the initial fight on the debt ceiling after basically one-press conference.
However, Obama faces the so-called second-term curse where presidents from Truman to Bush tended to do much worse in terms of job approval. Obama’s predecessor dropped 25 points from his first to his second term. The only exceptions were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who in spite of serious crises that directly hit their respective White House’s on Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky, they ended their second terms more popular than their first.
Obama may be helped during his second term by the fact that expectations for him are much muted from four years ago. A host of inaugural polls show the public less optimistic for his performance (drop from 66% in Jan. 2009 to 51% in 2013). Lower expectations may create a more realistic floor to lift off of and his aggressive couple of months since the election has already moved up the public’s perception of him as a strong leader.
See The Buzz: Obama begins 2013 on a roll
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