Favorability Ratings

A favorability rating is a statistical indicator that is produced from data that typically are gathered in political polls. These ratings indicate whether the public's overall sentiment toward a politician is favorable (positive), unfavorable (negative), or neutral. Journalists often report favorability ratings as part of their coverage of political campaigns and elections.

A favorability rating about a politician is calculated by using data gathered in so-called approval questions. These questions ask poll respondents whether they “approve or disapprove of X,” where X typically is the name of a politician. The favorability rating for that person is calculated by subtracting the proportion of those interviewed who say they disapprove of the person (or her or his policies, or both) from the proportion that say they approve. That is, the disapprove (negative) percentage is subtracted from the approve (positive) percentage; if there are more who disapprove than approve, then the favorability rating will be a negative number.

For example, if 65% of the people polled said they disapproved of the job George W. Bush was doing as president, while 30% said they approved (with 5% undecided), the favorability rating for Bush would be 30 − 65 = −35. The −35 score would indicate that there are substantially more people who disapprove of the president than approve. In contrast, if 45% of those polled said they approved of Bush, 40% said they disapproved, and 15% remained undecided, the president's favorability rating would be a + 5 (45 − 40), or very slightly positive.

Favorability ratings are best understood within some comparative context. Typically this context is either to compare the favorability rating of one politician with that of another or to compare the current favorability rating of a politician with her or his previous favorability ratings. Because favorability ratings are produced by contrasting two percentages, the absolute value of the rating indicates almost nothing about the underlying dynamics of public opinion toward the politician's job performance. For example, a favorability rating of −10 can result from many varied underlying differences in public sentiment, such as 5% of the public being positive about the politician, 15% being negative, and 85% having no opinion either way; or from 55% being negative and 45% being positive. These examples are two very different circumstances and reflect great differences in what the public as a whole believes. As such, a favorability rating by itself is difficult to interpret beyond merely knowing that proportionally more people feel one way than feel the other.

Finally, as a measurement technique in polls and surveys, favorability ratings are not limited in use only to the assessment of opinions about politicians. They can be used to assess the overall valance toward any person, place, or thing. Nor do they need to be calculated from a survey item that measures the extent of approval versus disapproval that the public holds. Instead, any survey item that is evaluative—in the sense that the closed-ended response scale ranges from “good” to “bad”—can be used to compute a favorability rating.