The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 36% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +4 (see trends).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter.

Overall, 56% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance so far. Forty-three percent (43%) disapprove. For more, see Obama By the Numbers or recent demographic highlights. Also, see comments on comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.

As the economic crunch works its way through the nation, three-out-of-four Americans know someone who has been laid off.

Forty-five percent (45%) of American adults say that all bailout funding for the finance industry should be stopped now. Most support the House-passed bill that would place a 90% tax on the bonuses paid to AIG executives. A Rasmussen video report notes that most Americans say the government should have stopped the bonuses before turning over bailout money.

Most Americans say that politicians should give back contributions received from AIG, but America’s political class disagrees. The same gap is evident on perceptions of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He gets rave reviews from the Political Class but the rest of nation strongly disagrees. On a related topic, most Americans favor letting insurance giant AIG go out of business, but the Political Class strongly disagrees.

A Fordham University professor has rated the national pollsters on their record in Election 2008. We also have provided a summary of our results for your review.

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters--is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for the full-week results are available for Premium Members.

Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Over the past four years, the number of Democrats in the country has increased while the number of Republicans has decreased.

Our baseline targets are established based upon separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 41.1% Democrats, 33.0% Republicans, and 25.9% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.

A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.

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