ADEMÁS DE LA ENCUESTA que destaqué ayer, del Washington Post y el Pew Research Center, hoy Newsweek también indica que la muerte de bin Laden prácticamente no ha hecho variar la popularidad de Obama:

How much overall boost did President Obama get from the capture of Osama Bin Laden? None, according to an exclusive Newsweek / Daily Beast poll encompassing 1,200 American adults, conducted in the two days immediately before the president’s Sunday announcement about the terrorist leader, and then the two days immediately after.

Specifically, Americans like the way he handled the situation, giving him strong results in strength and decision-making (55 percent now term him a strong leader overall, and 63 percent do so in the area of terrorism). Yet he did not get any overall bump in terms of approval rating, or electoral support. His approval rate was unchanged—48 approve, 49 disapprove, both before and after. There was also no statistical change in whether Obama deserves reelection—40/48 before, 39/49 after.

The clear reason: It's the economy, stupid. Even after Bin Laden’s death, only 30 percent think the country is on the right track, and only 27 percent think the economy is on the right track. Respondents disapprove of President Obama's handling of the economy  by a margin of 56 percent to 39 percent.

ACTUALIZACIÓN. Por el contrario, la encuesta del New York Times sí refleja un repunte de la popularidad de Obama, lo que confirma que son números fluidos y no concluyentes -en uno y otro caso-, que dependen mucho de la metodología, y que difícilmente proporcionan indicaciones de qué va ocurrir en las presidenciales de noviembre del año que viene.