AP Pushes Obama Approval Rating to 60%...With a Highly Skewed Sample

Jim Geraghty dissects the numbers:

Wow! The AP poll has Obama’s approval rating hitting 60 percent! And 53 percent say he deserves to be reelected!

And on the economy, 52 percent approve of the way Obama’s handling it, and only 47 percent disapprove! He’s up 54-56 on approval of how he’s handling health care! On unemployment, 52 percent approval, 47 percent disapproval! 57 percent approval on handling Libya! Even on the deficit, he’s at 47 percent approval, 52 percent disapproval!

It is of adults, which isn’t surprising; as I mentioned yesterday, you don’t have to be a registered or likely voter to have an opinion on the president.

But then you get to the party ID: 46 percent identify as Democrat or leaning Democrat, 29 percent identify as Republican or leaning Republican, 4 percent identify as purely independent leaning towards neither party, and 20 percent answered, “I don’t know.”

For contrast, the AP’s immediate preceding poll was 45 percent Democrat, 33 percent Republican; the likely voter pool in October 2010 was 43 percent Democrat, 48 percent Republican. The poll’s total sample in October 2010 split 43 percent Democrat, 40 percent Republican.

With a poll sample that has a 17 percentage point margin in favor of the Democrats, is anyone surprised that these results look like a David Axelrod dream?

(Interestingly, George W. Bush is at 50 percent approval, 49 percent disapproval, even in this sample wildly weighted in favor of the Democrats.)

Boy, they're not even trying for an accurate poll anymore. It's all about pushing the media narrative that the killing of bin Laden must have been a huge boost for Obama...even if it wasn't. There's not a chance that actual voters would skew so heavily toward Democrats.