Obama Approvals Hit Low But He Still Beats Clinton, Reagan

Gallup reports that President Obama's job approval ratings fell to 44.7 percent for the seventh quarter of his presidency. That's the lowest rating of his time in the White House.

One full term would be 16 quarters, of course. So this rating takes him almost to the half-way point.

Obama approval survey/Gallup

For congressional and other Democrats, it just reinforces what they've known, that the president is mostly hurting, not helping them.

The best they can hope for at this point is that they have enough candidates in state and local races who are popular enough in their own right to limit the damage caused by their party's national unpopularity, as symbolized by the president's disapproval numbers.

Gallup has charted the approval ratings for the last nine presidents which should give Obama cold consolation since it shows he's not in the bottom third. Those positions are held by Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

One of the most chilling pieces of information is this, only 39 percent of those polled said Obama deserved re-election. Of course that data is almost useless in isolation since presidents have opponents and voters tend to choose between two people.

As Gallup noted, both Reagan and Clinton fought back from lower approval ratings to win re-election. And George H.W. Bush whose approvals at this point in his presidency were soaring was at nearly 70 percent because of the success of the Gulf War went on to lose his re-election.

So these numbers are just a snapshot, not the whole story by a long shot.