The final Obama approval rating before the midterm elections is in — and it isn’t stopping the White House from declaring they expect Democrats to keep control of the Senate tomorrow anyway.  

The Gallup daily tracking poll had the approval rating for President Barack Obama rising 1 point Monday to a still-dismal 41 percent. His disapproval rating held steady at 54 percent. As we’ve noted before, Obama’s poll ratings are much worse in many of the battleground states that will decide control of the Senate .  

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisted during Monday’s briefing that President Barack Obama expects Democrats to keep the Senate with an argument of helping middle class families and with a strong ground game, which he said “can provide a two to three point margin that could eventually make up the difference.”  

He downplayed polls showing the president’s lack of popularity.  

“The polls indicate that most voters are making up their minds about which candidate to support for reasons that don’t involve the president of the United States,” he said.  

Earnest acknowledged though that “voters are understandably frustrated with Washington, D.C. And they hold the president, the most powerful person in Washington, accountable for that.”  

Obama has no public events on his schedule today, although some voters may hear from him via a targeted robo-call and the like. He simply hasn’t been much in demand by his party on the campaign trail. (Full race ratings and map ).  

The final pre-midterm Obama approval rating is just 3 points better than President George W. Bush scored in 2006 when Democrats swept into power, Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport said in a video last week .  

Obama’s approval rating is also near his personal low in the RealClearPolitics average. Newport noted that the president’s approval rating has strongly correlated to the results in midterm elections. President Ronald Reagan had poor poll ratings in the 1982 midterm elections and his party lost significant ground in both chambers.  

Obama’s approval rating for 2010’s “shellacking” was 44 percent.  

Obama could set a modern record for midterm-election losses  dating back to President Harry S. Truman.  

Roll Call Election Map: Race Ratings for Every Seat


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