The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8 (see trends).

Among voters without health insurance, 58% favor passage of the health care plan working its way through Congress. Thirty-five percent (35%) are opposed. Most uninsured Democrats favor the plan while most uninsured Republicans do not.

The President recently said he is open to considering the idea of giving tax breaks to struggling newspapers. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American adults say it would be better to provide some federal subsidies rather than let the newspapers go out of business. However, only 17% favor a government bailout of the newspaper industry.

In fact, just 25% even favor the creation of a White House commission to help find ways for struggling news organizations survive.

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 and Facebook.

Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty (50%) now disapprove. A Month-by-Month Review of the President’s ratings shows that the Presidential Approval Index served as a leading indicator by declining months before the President’s overall job approval ratings fell.

Members of Congress have now slipped below corporate CEOs to become the least favorably viewed profession. Twenty-five percent (25%) have a favorable opinion of the legislators while 27% say that about the business leaders.

Later today, Rasmussen Reports will release data measuring public reaction to the President’s decision to halt deployment of an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. Also, an update on which of the President’s priorities is considered most important. Premium Members can get an advance look at the data.

Rasmussen Reports has recently released polling on the upcoming Senate races in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. We are also polling regularly on the 2009 Governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia and have taken a look at the 2010 Colorado Governor’s race along with the Texas GOP Primary battle.

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

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.

(More Below)

Scott Rasmussen has recently had three analysis columns published in the Wall Street Journal. The most recent was on health care. Earlier columns were on the President’s approval ratings and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. If you’d like Scott Rasmussen to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about Scott’s favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.

Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated polling techniques. While some of our competitors diss the approach and prefer their own operator-assisted technology, 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.”

Additionally, 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. That stability is one reason that Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com said that the Rasmussen tracking poll “would probably be the one I’d want with me on a desert island.”

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

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).

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. Over the past five 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 37.7% Democrats, 32.7% Republicans, and 29.6% 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.