Of three new polls, two place approval of President Bush at or above 40% while one comes in at 34%. Last week's Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll, taken 10/5-8/06 finds approval at 41%, disapproval at 54%. The new Fox poll from 10/10-11/06 has approval at 40%, disapproval at 56%. And a Harris Interactive poll done 10/6-9/06 puts approval at 34% and disapproval at 64%. (For a plot with just the trend line estimate and the data points, click here.)
With the addition of these new polls, my trend estimate has continued to decline, now standing at 37.2%. Interestingly this trend estimate is virtually identical whether I use my usual "conservative" blue line estimator or the more sensitive (but easily fooled) estimator. While two of these polls are still in the 40s, the Fox and Harris estimates represent declines from their previous result. Cook is a small rise from their previous reading. The current spread of results is consistent with the usual variability around the trend line of approximately +/-4.8%.
An easier to see comparison of the individual polls with the overall trend is shown in the figure below. There are some clear house effects between the polls, but each tracks the trend reasonably well.
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