President Barack Obama's approval rating is at 55 percent, matching his best ratings since his first year in office and the highest ratings of his second term, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.
Obama's ratings have been at 50 percent or higher in CNN/ORC polls since February, and overall average 51 percent for 2016, reports CNN. Further, the ratings are 10 points higher than they were a year ago.
The poll numbers were deeply divided among political parties, and marked an racial gap as well:
- Democrats: 89 percent approval;
- Independents: 56 percent;
- Republicans: 13 percent;
- White voters: 47 percent;
- Hispanic voters: 68 percent;
- Black voters: 86 percent;
- Non-white voters: 70 percent;
- White voters with college degrees: 55 percent;
- White voters without college degrees: 44 percent.
Obama's ratings are above former President George W. Bush's numbers at this point in office, and at about even with Ronald Reagan's in 1988, but run slightly behind Bill Clinton's 58 percent in October 2000. Clinton's and Reagan's ratings both went to over 60 percent after their successor was elected.
The telephone poll was conducted from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, using a random national sample of 1,501 adults, and carried a plus-or-minus 2.5 percentage point margin of error.