The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Each time the President leads a big push for his health care plan, his job approval ratings suffer. While some portions of the plan are popular, others are not. Most voters oppose the proposed Medicare savings and the taxes involved. As a result, most voters continue to oppose the legislation. Just 20% of voters believe that most Members of Congress will understand the proposed health care bill before they vote on it. From a political perspective, 50% are less likely to vote for a Member of Congress who supports the health care reform plan proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats.

With the House vote expected tomorrow (Sunday), Rasmussen Reports will release our latest tracking of support for the health care legislation tomorrow morning rather than waiting until Monday. Thirty-four percent (34%) now say health care reform is the goal the President is most likely to achieve. Voters still say deficit reduction is the most important and the least likely to be achieved.

On Monday, Rasmussen Reports will begin rolling out new features for measuring the performance of the President and other politicians. Also, next week, we will launch new features that will help track information on a state by state basis. The latest polling data can always be found on the Rasmussen Reports home page, updated with new data at least six times daily.

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 are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That also matches the lowest level yet recorded for this President. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove.

Check out our review of last week’s key polls to see “What They Told Us”.

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See our 2010 Senate polling from Nevada, Colorado, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, California, Indiana, Wisconsin, Washington, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Iowa.

Republicans have opened up a ten-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Rasmussen Reports has also released polls on the 2010 governor’s races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina Wisconsin, and Texas.

Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen have a recent article in the Wall Street Journal explaining “Why Obama Can’t Move the Health Care Numbers.” Other recent Wall Street Journal columns by Scott addressed how President Obama is losing independent voters , health care reform, the President’s approval ratings, and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan.

Scott’s new book, In Search of Self-Governance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.

You can also learn about his favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.

It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama’s numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That’s because some of the President’s most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. It is also important to check the details of question wording when comparing approval ratings from different firms.

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Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology). Pollsters for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have cited our “unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy.”

Data from the Washington Post confirms that Rasmussen Reports was well ahead of other media coverage on the Massachusetts Senate race.

In the 2009 New Jersey Governor’s race, automated polls tended to be more accurate than operator-assisted polling techniques. On reviewing the state polling results from 2009, Mickey Kaus offered this assessment, “If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious N.Y. Times, go with Rasmussen!”

During Election 2008, liberal blogger Nate Silver said that the Rasmussen tracking poll “would probably be the one I’d want with me on a desert island.”

In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased with the stability of our results. On every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign, our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead attracting more than 50% of the vote.

An analysis by Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin “found that despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is less variable than Gallup.” During Election 2008, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll was the least volatile of all those tracking the race.

We also have provided a summary of our 2008 state-by-state Presidential results for your review.

In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates’ totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our 2004 results).

See also our 2008 state results for Senate and governor. See 2006 results for senate and governor.

Pollster.com founder Mark Blumenthal noted that “independent analyses from the National Council on Public Polls, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Pew Research Center, the Wall Street Journal and FiveThirtyEight.com have all shown that the horse-race numbers produced by automated telephone surveys did at least as well as those from conventional live-interviewer surveys in predicting election outcomes.”

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 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. Since the November 2008 election, the number of Democrats in the country has declined while the number of unaffiliated voters has grown.

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 35.3% Democrats, 32.8% Republicans, and 31.9% 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. To get a sense of longer-term trends, check out our month-by-month review of the President’s numbers.