The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll provides "less bad" news for the White House today in the form of a 36% approval, 57% disapproval rating of President Bush. The poll, taken 4/21-24/06, is 4 percentage points above the 32% approval registered in the new CNN/ORC poll completed 4/23. On the other hand, this is a "new low" for NBC/WSJ polling, which has declined steadily from 39% to 37% to now 36% since late January. The low for 2005 was 38% in early November.
The NBC/WSJ is, however, a percentage point above my current trend estimate of 34.96% approval. That's well within the usual range of variation. NBC/WSJ has a house effect of -.7%, so it is a little unusual for them to be above the overall trend. With a margin of error of 3% this isn't unlikely enough to provide evidence for a change in trend. I'm still betting new polls will come in close to 35%.
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