Time for a brief update on the latest round of public opinion surveys examining approval ratings of two important aspects of the federal government.

I refer, of course, to the presidency and to Congress.

I’ll admit to being as addicted to polls as many in the media are while reporting on the 2016 presidential campaign. It’s called “horse-race coverage” and the media are doing it well.

I follow a link called RealClearPolitics.com, which includes a vast array of political commentary and reporting — as well as polling averages.

President Obama is about to break the 50-percent barrier in the RCP average of polls.

An interesting twist to this, though, is that Congress is about to fall below 12 percent in its average of the polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Check out the link here.

The president’s relatively good political fortune seems to bode well not only for him, but also for his political party’s presumptive presidential nominee, fellow Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s opening up something up a growing lead over GOP nominee-to-be Donald J. Trump.

The RCP poll average is instructive as well, as it includes all the major polling outfits’ findings. Those that lean right and left are lumped together and calculated.

The trend is clear. The voting public is looking for favorably on the incumbent president and the individual from his own party who hopes to succeed him, while looking more dimly on Congress, which is run by those from the other political party.