A new American Research Group (ARG) poll taken 5/18-21/07 has approval of President Bush at 31% and disapproval at 64%. With this addition, the approval trend estimate is at 33.4%.
The recent downward wobble is still unconvincing as an indication of a shift in trend. We've seen exactly this kind of wobble for nearly five months now, with down wobbled converted to up wobbles and back down. So for the moment, pending a good deal more data, I continue to believe that approval remains in the 33-35% range we've seen since January.
This is now the longest period of stable approval we've seen in the entire Bush presidency. Evidently the Republican President and Democratic Congress are stuck in an equilibrium with each other-- unable to convince voters to shift their views of the president one way or the other. Events may eventually disrupt that equilibrium, but so far the Iraq debate and Department of Justice hearings have failed to do so, as has the White House critique of Democratic "surrender dates" and defense of Attorney General Gonzalez.
Curious. Very curious.
