A new Diageo/Hotline poll collected 5/16-20/07 of 800 registered voters finds approval at 32%, disapproval at 64%. The Hotline poll usually runs a little above the trend estimate, but in this case is a point under trend, which now stands at 33.0%.
Over the last several polls, approval has moved down a bit. It remains in the 33-35% range we've seen since January, but only just barely.
Since we've been talking about "Ready Red", the sensitive trend estimator in comparison to "Old Blue", the more conservative estimator I use here, I've also run a graph comparing the two. Red is willing to go a point lower in approval than Blue. But notice how well the two trends usually agree once all the data are in. If you can't see the red line below, that's because Blue is on top of it-- i.e. they agree. And usually they agree because Red eventually sees that Blue was right. HOWEVER, when approval or other trends DO change direction suddenly, it is Red that eventually convinces Blue to move along. At the moment, the difference is quite small and I'd say there is little additional evidence from Red at this point.
I've been impressed by the stability of approval for the past five months. I still am. I'll need to see four or five more polls all clearly below trend before I'm convinced that the current dip is real, and not just another false lead from a few polls.
The diagnostics below show no alarming indicators of anything, so nothing more to say.
