Gallup poll shows Obama’s post-Bin Laden numbers fading

The rosy glow that helped boost President Obama’s approval ratings after terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan has already faded, according to the Gallup Daily tracking poll.

As of May 13, Obama’s approval rating was at 46%, the same number he had in the three days before the raid on Bin Laden’s hideaway at the beginning of the month. The president had received a six-point bump as measured in the Gallup poll after the death of Bin Laden.

In addition to getting an approval bump after the raid, Obama got a second bounce as fewer people disapproved of him. After the raid his disapproval numbers fell from 45% to 40%.

In the current tracking poll numbers, his disapproval numbers were at 44%, almost the same as before the raid.

Gallup Daily tracks the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job the president is doing. Results, which are based on a three-day rolling average, come from telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 adults. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

The Gallup findings on the initial bump were expected and were similar to that found by most pollsters. While methods and the size of the sample differ, all polls agreed that the president had enjoyed a rise in popularity after the raid. Most of the polls also showed that there was still significant unhappiness with how the president was dealing with the economy.

Gallup is not the first to show the positive effects from the death of Bin Laden to be fading. For example, a poll by the Pew Center for the People and the Press showed that the president got a nine-point jump to 56% approval, but that two-thirds of the increase had faded by last week.

michael.muskal@latimes.com

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