Monday, October 23, 2006

Table of Contents

This item serves as a Table of Contents to the topics I'm currently covering. Click on an item to jump to it, or scroll down to browse through all the recent posts. (Click a graph, and click again for best resolution.)

Current Approval of President Bush
Bush Approval: Four polls, Trend at 36.2% (10/23) New!
Bush Approval: Three new polls, Trend at 35.8% (10/17)
Bush Approval: Three new polls, Trend at 37.2% (10/13)
Bush Approval: Four New Polls, Trend at 38% (10/10)
Bush Approval: Newsweek 33% (10/7)
Bush Approval: Trend turns down (10/6)
Bush Approval: NBC/WSJ and CNN at 39% (10/2)
Bush Approval: Three polls agree on 42% (9/28)
Bush Approval: Still rising (9/27)

Presidential Approval in Perspective: UPDATED through polling of 10/22/06
See the links to current and historical presidential approval graphs in the column to the right.


Generic Ballot
Generic Ballot: Dem lead widens post Foley (10/10)
Generic Ballot: Decline ends, upturn?? (10/06)
Generic Ballot: Three polls slightly below trend (9/28)
Generic Ballot: After a dip, stable (9/27)

Technical Notes on Local Regression
Many of the "trends" I estimate here use a technique known as "local regression." A very good, not-too-technical description with a good bibliography can be found at the National Institute of Standards and Technology here. For a more technical discussion by William Cleveland, the developer of the technique I use, see his paper here (in pdf). All computation is done in the R
statistical language, an open source, free, program for statistical computing, about which much more here.

Basic Trends: A review of favorite indicators
Generic Ballot: New polls mostly below trend (8/28)
Votes, Seats and the Generic Ballot (8/18)
Generic Congressional Ballot (8/15)
Approval of Bush's handling of terrorism (8/13)
Right Direction/Wrong Track(7/27)

House Races
Hot House Races Lean Dem (9/7)

Hillary Clinton
Hillary's image: 1993-2006 (8/31)

Katrina
Katrina and Bush, One Year Later (8/29)

2006 Campaigns in the States
WI Gov: New polls, same story (8/18) Updated 8/21.
WI Gov: Pollster (and sample) still matters most (7/20)
When the pollster matters most: WI Gov 06 (7/11)
WA Sen: Cantwell-McGavick getting closer? (7/10)
Puzzling Polls in PA Pondered (6/29)

Polling Organizations and House Effects
House Effects and Presidential Approval UPDATED through polling of 8/9/06

Is there a limit to how low presidential approval can go?:
How low can approval go? (3/4)

Historical Footnote
Approval at new low-- for President Truman (7/2)

The problem of detecting change in polls
Up, down or unchanged: Describing poll results (6/17)
"Unchanged since Yesterday": Detecting Change in Presidential Approval (3/26)
New low or steady as you go? Has Bush's fall stopped? (3/23)

Partisanship, Approval and Congressional Elections
Bush Approval: Cook/RT at 39% (8/1)
(This item covers two topics, hence listing it here and under current approval.)

Stem cell opinions and votes
Public support for stem cell research (7/19)

The '08 Contenders
Feingold at home: No censure/withdrawal reaction (7/27)

Conflicting polls
When the pollster matters most: WI Gov 06 (7/11)
Puzzling Polls in PA Pondered (6/29)

Presidential Approval at Midterm
Approval and Midterm Seat Loss: Two Problems (5/10)
Midterm Presidential Approval and 2006 (5/2)

Partisanship and polling:
Party ID and presidential approval (4/5)
Partisanship moves (3/20)
Partisanship across polls (3/2)