Gallup Shows Friendlier Picture for Obama in Mississippi

Gallup released half year approval ratings for President Obama on a state-by-state basis today. This data is based on numbers from the past six months that Gallup used for their daily tracking poll of the president. About six months ago, Gallup released numbers based on all of 2009 and found that Obama had a 52 percent approval rating in Mississippi. I was highly skeptical of that at the time. There latest numbers show he has a 47 approval rating in state with 42 disapproval. Once again, these numbers seen inflated for the president.

As we mentioned earlier today, a recent one day poll of likely voters found Obama’s approval at 37 percent versus 60 percent who disapprove. Gallup’s numbers, besides being tracked over a six month period (verses one day), are based on all adults (not just registered voters or likely voters).

Gallup has been in business as long as anybody and are one of the most respected names in polling. Because the Rasmussen and Gallup numbers were so far apart, I looked at other recent polling from Pollster.com and compared them with Gallup. The results were mixed (and not just compared with Rasmussen). Some numbers were within the margin of error, while others were way off compared to other polling.

Don’t expect Trent Lott to be speaking at any Tea Party rallies in the near future. The ongoing question of whether the Tea Party is helping or hurting the Republican Party continues to linger inside the beltway, and one former Republican Senator joined in the debate. Former Sen. Trent Lott, who has always been an establishment guy and had a reputation for working with Democrats when he was a leader, said this: “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” Lott added: “I still have faith in the visceral judgment of the American people.”

Analysis on women in Mississippi politics. A new AP analysis shows what should have been fairly obvious to an observer of Mississippi politics- women are underrepresented in elected politics. The four women in the Senate and 21 in the House constitute just 14.4 percent of the legislative total. Seven of the 410 county supervisors are women, and as Hillary Clinton explained not to long ago Mississippi have never sent a woman to Congress nor has it elected a female governor.