President Barack Obama will exit the White House this week with his highest approval rating since his first year in office.
According to a new CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday, Obama’s current approval rating is at 60 percent, his highest rate since June 2009, six months into his first term as president. CNN reported that such high marks place Obama third among recent presidents’ outgoing approval rating, behind Bill Clinton’s 66 percent in January 2001 and Ronald Reagan’s 64 percent in January 1989. Additionally, the poll found, 65 percent of polled Americans said they believe the Obama presidency was a success; and while 54 percent of Democrats surveyed said they consider Obama among the “greatest presidents,” the same percentage of Republicans believe him to have been a poor president—underscoring the deep partisan divide felt as a Trump presidency is on the horizon.
The results of the poll: