Poll: Geithner's Approval Numbers Just Barely In The Black
A new Gallup poll finds Americans are closely divided on Tim Geithner's performance, with a large amount of undecideds, as well.
The numbers: Approve 42%, Disapprove 40%. Democrats approve at 61%, Republicans disapprove with 63%, and independents are nearly the same as the overall top-line numbers.
From the pollster's analysis: "It is not a good sign for Geithner, perhaps, that he receives significantly lower approval ratings than does his boss. In the same poll in which Geithner receives 42% approval, Obama receives a 64% approval rating (and a 30% disapproval rating)."
Advertisement
Josh
Matt
Eric
That's all well and good, except, he's not an elected official. So, who cares? What are the topline numbers on Obama? Congress? Dems?
March 30, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Approval ratings for cabinet officials? WTF?
Unbelievable stupidity from Gallup and, by extension, TPM for posting this nonsense.
March 30, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
For Cabinet members?
Hillary Clinton
Rice, Rumsfeld
March 30, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's pretty remarkable that that many people actually have an opinion on Geithner.
I would imagine that in previous years, people wouldn't have been able to pick the Treasury Secretary out of a lineup.
March 30, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's true. I mean, usually, the most exposure the they get is their signature on money, right? Geithner is pretty high profile right now.
March 30, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even though he's yet to have his own name on the $ bill: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/22/news/economy/treasury_dollars/
March 30, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree -the number of people polled who even know who Geithner is -is pretty weird.
The most obvious reason for it is that people are WAY more focused on the economy from a political viewpoint than they've been in decades. Obama campaigned on the promise of putting the economy back on track, so people are interested on how the administration plans to do it.
March 30, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Geithner is so charismatic you see.
March 30, 2009 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm surprised it's this high considering the progressives and Republicans bagging on him. TPM can't hide their cheerleading against Geithner, Kos pines for Krugman to save them...
March 30, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
True, the way Huffington Post and other left and every single right wing blog is attacking him I'm surprised he isn't flirting with Dubya numbers.
March 30, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
People trust the Prez and that gives Tim some cover in the polls.
March 30, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has he put out the "Let them eat cake" press release yet?
March 30, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why are people here acting as if polling cabinet member approval is something new?
Just a quick guess: because Geithner's numbers aren't too good. If the approval were 80%, everyone would shout in unison, "hurray!"
March 30, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Come around this time next year I gurantee it's in the 60's
March 30, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quick! Blame the Media! Including TPM of course. It's all Schor's fault.
March 30, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome to future. With the pending demise of so many newspapers, our 24/7 world will allow people to dissect every aspect of life, within nano seconds.
Soon, we'll be judging our leaders by the number of times they need to relieve their bodies of fluids +.
March 30, 2009 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Gallup do a poll last week on Geithner where the approval was at 52%. So now we see a 10% decline in one week. In other words take this poll with a grain of salt.
March 31, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is the Demo Repo split reflective of a deep value conflict or is is more just a sort of knee-jerk party line thing?
I also suspect that categories of voters pay attention to different parts of the discourse, or weight their judgments that way.
March 31, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink