Bush’s low of 19% is the lowest of all presidents in the age of polling.  That number came in September of last year.  The next lowest approval was achieved by Truman (22%), followed by Nixon (23%).

Bush also had the highest approval rating of any president at 92%.  This was in early October 2001 (after September 11, 2001).  His Dad has the next highest at 89%, followed by Truman at 87%.  Both Bush Sr. and Truman had their highest approval ratings right after Wars (Bush after the Gulf War and Truman after WWII).

I put together a few charts, the most interesting of which I think is the Outgoing Minus Incoming Approval Rating.  It gives you a sense whether expectations were exceeded or dashed.

Outgoing Minus Incoming Approval Rating

The following chart shows the lowest &  highest approval rating for each president.  Bush Jr has set the bar on both ends.

Lowest & Highest Approval Ratings for US Presidents

This last chart shows the difference between the highest & lowest approval rating.  It’s one way to measure how much of a ‘roller coaster ride’ the presidency was.  Bush Jr takes the cake here, too.

Highest Minus Lowest Approval Rating

So, what are the expectations of the Obama presidency?  According to Gallup, 65% of Americans are confident in his ability to be a good president.  Time will tell.

Of course, public opinion and approval ratings are fickle things.  But it is helpful to put context to Bush’s numbers as he leaves office, and look at other trends that emerge from the data.

The voting-age population (VAP) is traditionally used to calculate turnout, and includes anyone of voting age living in the US.  However, as Dr. McDonald argues, the VAP includes non-US citizens and felons who are ineligible to vote, while it excludes eligible voters living outside of the US.  He has come up with a way to calculate the voting-eligible population (VEP), which attempts to correct for these flaws.  I find the VEP much more precise for determining voter turnout.

The fascinating thing about his research is that it reveals that voter turnout has not been as low in recent decades as previously thought.  Check out his chart below, which shows the difference in voter turnout calculations between VAP & VEP:

Presidential Turnout Rates: 1948-2008, from the United States Election Project

Note the ever-widening gap between VAP turnout rate (yellow) and VEP turnout rate (green).  Since 1972, the VAP has become less accurate for determining voter turnout; almost a 5% difference in 2008.

How’s that for a prelude?  Now we’re ready to take a look at this year’s election turnout, which was 61.6% based on VEP calculations; right up there with the 1968 election.

I took Dr. McDonald’s 2008 state election turnout rates and mapped them using Inkscape.  The map is in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format (Firefox, Opera & others should be fine, but IE users will need the Adobe SVG viewer plugin).  Unfortunately SVG is not a standard yet, but based on my limited exposure to it so far, I’m a fan.  In Firefox, hovering over a state will reveal the % voter turnout for that state (I’m not sure why I can’t get this to work with Opera & IE).  Select the thumbnail below for the SVG version (or if you prefer, here’s a link to the less-cool but stable JPG version).

Voter Turnout by State in the 2008 Presidential Elections

And below are my findings & analysis.  Standard JPG format here.  Of particular interest to me was the fact that the blue states had 4.9% higher turnout than red states in the 2008 election.  It was also fascinating that Minnesota has the highest turnout for the past 3 presidential elections.  I wonder if that hotly contested Senate race had anything to do with it this year…  As usual, select the image for a larger version.

Summary of Voter Participation in the 2008 Presidential Election

Thanks again to Dr. McDonald for his excellent work on voter turnout.

***

Yesterday’s election drew voters out in record numbers, if you couldn’t tell by the lines some of you experienced at your polling places.  I voted early and had to wait about 40 minutes, which isn’t so bad…but I’m not in a swing state!

Based on preliminary results, 148,218,161 million people voted.  That’s 64.1% of all eligible voters.  It may not seem like much, but that’s one for the record books, especially in these times.  That percentage has not been exceeded in our lifetime (unless you’re a hundred years old)!  You have to go back to the election of 1908 to beat it!  Back then, William Howard Taft (R-Ohio) beat William Jennings Bryan (D-Nebraska) with 321 electoral votes, and 65.4% of eligible voters cast a ballot.  Incidentally, the all-time record goes to the hotly-contested race between Rutherford B. Hayes (R-Ohio) and Samuel J. Tilden (D-New York).  Hayes eeked out a 1-point electoral victory, and 81.8% of eligible voters cast a ballot!  Talk about long lines!

Here’s a look at the voter turnout since 1960 (select the image for full-size): 

Presidential Elections: Turnout of Eligible Voters (%)

And here’s a look at the electoral votes won by U.S. Presidents since 1960 (select the image for full-size):

Presidential Elections: Electoral Votes Won

Both of these charts are based on preliminary data.  If the final numbers change substancially, I’ll post an update.

U.S. Gas Prices Leading up to the 2008 Election

Now THAT’s a clear downward trend prior to the elections!  There are some plausible explanations for this dramatic (possibly record-setting) drop in gas prices (other than manipulation by the powers that be).  And without corroborating evidence from prior years, I’m inclined to believe them.  Besides, President Bush already demonstrated his office’s inability to influence crude prices & supply.

Distribution and marketing are mostly the profit the local station makes.  Taxes, then, are the only portion of cost over which a state has control.  Taxes are relatively steady and typically don’t change month-to-month.  So what made sense was to look at the national level, to see if there were trends there (select the image to see it bigger):

Gas Prices and Presidential Elections, 1992 - 2007

No smoking gun here.  If anything, there seems to be a trend in recent non-Presidential election years for gas to drop prior to November (2001, 2003, 2005, and 2006).  But in contrast, gas prices in the Presidential election years have remained relatively flat or, in the case of 2004, have increased prior to Election Day.  If there were some manipulation going on, I would have expected to see a stark contrast in the trends of election and non-election years.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how this one would turn out; but it appears that this myth is busted.

Source: Energy Information Administration

Some interesting findings in the data (hover for definitions):

The Obama-to-McCain ratio (DNC): 2.9:1
The McCain-to-Obama ratio (RNC): 8:1
The Obama-to-Bush ratio (DNC): 4.9:1
The McCain-to-Bush ratio (RNC): 88:1 Bush was only mentioned 4 times in speeches available at the RNC.
The Obama-to-Biden ratio (DNC): 9.9:1
The McCain-to-Palin ratio (RNC): 8:1

Here are the word clouds:

All DNC 2008 speeches word cloud

All RNC 2008 speeches word cloud

Here’s the top 15 words:

Here are links to the word clouds at wordle.net:

And if you haven’t had enough, I’ve linked both the DNC speech word counts and RNC speech word counts as text (csv) files.  Enjoy!

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