Obama vs. Bush at 100 days

About 100 days into his presidency, which of the following statements about President Obama is true?

1. Mr. Obama is a more divisive figure than President George W. Bush was at 100 days.

2. Obama is more popular with moderate swing voters than Mr. Bush was.

3. Obama does better with his base of support than Bush did with his at this point of his presidency.

Arguably, all three are true – at least that’s what a breakdown of the two men’s approval rating at 100 days suggests.

Using our 11 community types, Patchwork Nation broke down the two presidents’ 100-day approval surveys from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and found ammunition for both Obama supporters and opponents.

On the whole, the new president has a deep well of support at 63 percent approval. That’s deeper than the approval Mr. Bush had at this point, which did not tip 60 percent. But when you sort through those numbers with Patchwork Nation’s community types, the picture is a bit more complicated.

No one is dead set against the Oval Office’s new occupant, but Obama’s level of support varies sharply from place to place.

More divisive?

While much has been made of Obama’s high levels of support in recent weeks, most new presidents still have some reserve of good will at the 100-day mark. Bush, for instance, did not score below 59 percent approval in any of our communities in early 2001. Even in our very Democratic, big-city “Industrial Metropolis” counties, which voted against him by large margins, he did well.

Obama, on the other hand, is below 50 percent in our heavily Latino “Immigration Nation” communities and at just 50 percent in our “Military Bastions” located near military bases. He’s also at just 51 percent in our culturally conservative “Evangelical Epicenters.”

Our 11 communities are made up of a variety of people, of course, but there are larger consistencies within them. The three community types in which Obama’s support hovers around 50 percent – “Immigration Nation,” “Military Bastions,” and “Evangelical Epicenters” – tend to be fairly conservative and on the whole voted against Obama in November. (The numbers in our fourth conservative community type – agricultural “Tractor Country” – are based on a sample that is too small to be reliable.)

These numbers indicate Obama has made little headway with them. The comments we hear from some of these places tend to be the most critical.

“The people I talk to are feeling less and less positive about him,” writes Gay Nell Rittenberry, a Realtor in Hopkinsville, Ky., our “Military Bastion,” in an e-mail. “In fact, Democrats who I know voted for him are telling me what a mistake they made.” The high point in the Obama presidency was the rescue of the American ship captain from pirates off Somalia, Ms. Rittenberry says. But she believes Obama was “was more a hindrance to the military than a help.”

The middle’s president

The Pew numbers also reveal Obama’s biggest strength, however. He is doing very well with voters in the wealthy, educated “Monied ’Burb” counties and in the growing and diversifying “Boom Towns.” He is at 70 percent and 69 percent approval in those places, respectively – better than Bush’s numbers in them at this point in his presidency.

That’s a critical point. The “Monied ’Burbs” and the “Boom Towns” are key politically in several ways. They are populous, wealthy, and the people in them are more likely to be swing voters.

Those communities, which might be thought of as the middle of American politics, are very important when it comes to passing legislation and getting elected, and both have received some help from the Obama team.

Obama’s plan to aid struggling homeowners may have had the biggest impact in the “Boom Towns,” many of which are struggling with high numbers of foreclosures. Meanwhile, the “Monied ’Burbs” tend to have the most stock owners and may be the most sympathetic to plans to aid banks and the stock markets.

There is solid support for Obama in those community types, and he will likely lean on them heavily as he presses forward with his agenda.

Perhaps just as important, his support there has not caused erosion in his political base. The president has an 82 percent approval rating in what might be thought of as his base, the nation’s “Industrial Metropolis” counties.

A different world

The biggest caveats to the comparisons, however, may be related to the different situations that faced the two presidents during their first 100 days. When Bush came into office, the country was at peace, and the tech bubble had not yet burst on Wall Street. Times were good and his biggest agenda item was a tax cut.

Obama is dealing with a country engaged in two armed conflicts, and he is wading through the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. He has pushed and passed economic plans – from administering the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to supporting the auto bailout – that are controversial.

Taking that into consideration, Obama was probably never going to do well in the communities where his approval is sagging. But his level of support in the others is impressive.