Bush Approval Falls to 28.3%

President Bush's approval trend has taken a sharp downturn in recent weeks, to fall to a new low for the administration at 28.3%. This follows a lengthy period of stable approval at around 32-33%.

Recent polls from Gallup and AP/Ipsos put approval at 28%, a new low for the Gallup poll. Harris recently found approval at 26% while CBS News put approval at 28%. Pew similarly has approval at 28%, though the Diageo/Hotline result for registered voters (as opposed to adults in the other polls) has approval at 35%, the only recent poll over 30%.

While the President has taken a back seat to the primaries in recent months, his new approval slump reflects growing pessimism over the economy which has displaced the war in Iraq as the most important problem facing the country. Likewise the percent saying the nation is headed in the wrong direction has continued to grow in recent months, to a high of 81% in a recent CBS News poll.

Bush Approval: Trend 32.6%

New polls: Marist/WNBC (10/29-11/1/07) Approve 34%, disapprove 58%; Gallup (11/2-4/07) approve 31%, disapprove 64%; NBC/WSJ (11/1-5/07)approve 31%, disapprove 63%.

With these new polls, the trend estimate moves to 32.6%. The rise in approval since June has now clearly leveled off and is perhaps starting slightly down. Both the conservative blue trend estimate and the more sensitive red line agree on both the level of the trend and its recent changes.

After a flurry out both high and low outliers in recent weeks, the current crop of polls are generally falling within the 95% confidence interval around the trend. The last 6 polls are all quite close to the trend estimate.

Bush Approval: Trend at 32.6%

There have been several polls since my last update, and they have varied much more than usual. But the bottom line, with all the data, is a small decline in the trend estimate, and that well within the uncertainty of the trend.

The newly added polls are:

Fox: 10/23-24/07, Approve 35%, Disapprove 55%
LATimes/Bloomberg: 10/19-22/07, Approve 35%, Disapprove 60%
ARG: 10/18-21/07, Approve 25%, Disapprove 67%
CBS News: 10/12-16/07, Approve: 30, Disapprove 61%
CNN/ORC: 10/12-14/07, Approve 36%, Disapprove 61%
Zogby/Reuters: 10/10-14/07, Approve 25%, Disapprove 75%

That is quite a range from two at 25% to a top of 36%. Zogby and ARG are well below the trend estimate, while the two at 35% and one at 36% are only a bit above trend. (An older NPR poll at 38% is well above expectations, but as I explained in an earlier post this has something to do with the likely voter sample NPR favors, compared to the adult samples of most approval polls.)
























If we look at the residuals, NPR looks like a high outlier and Harris a low one. But Zogby/Reuters and ARG are even more extreme low outliers. Zogby uses the same 4 point job rating measure that Harris uses, so that partially explains their low value (a persistent question wording effect) but as the plot makes clear, the Zogby reading is even lower than we'd expect from that. The ARG reading is also extremely low, at the same 25% approval rating, and the points and labels are overwritten by each other.
























The curiosity is why two (three with Harris) outliers? Did opinion change and these caught it early? Apparently not, judging by other recent polls that are at or even a bit higher than the trend estimate of 32.6%.

In general I think it is a bad idea to seek a substantive explanation for outliers. The most reasonable story is simply "random variation" and we should leave it at that. There ARE some systematic elements, such as the question wording variation or sampling issues I pointed out, but I'm not inclined to say more. To do so becomes a post hoc search for what are most likely statistical phantoms. (Though when history keeps repeating itself we might look into house effects for a systematic effect, possibly due to question wording, sampling, or treatment of don't know responses.)

The bottom line is approval may have shifted down a tad, from 33.0% to 32.6%. BUT, one should consider the gray region around the trend line below. This gives you a good idea of the uncertainty in the trend estimate itself, after squeezing out as much random variation in the polls as possible (at least until next week! Stay tuned for that!). Clearly the change of .4 percentage points is not a clear indication of movement in approval. In fact, given the wide range of current polling, we have an unusually wide uncertainty about where approval actually is at the moment, with 32.6% being our best estimate, but an uncertain one.

We are in a period of relative stability in President Bush's approval rating but considerable polling variation. Waiting for the next "thing" to happen.

Bush Approval: Trend at 33.0%

President Bush's approval trend has been relatively flat in recent weeks. For the last month the estimated approval has held between 32% and 33% and currently stands at 33.0%, which includes Gallup's 32% approval from polling done 10/12-14/07.

There was a fairly sharp upturn that started in July, which has tapered off but not yet disappeared. Poll to poll fluctuations have pulled the trend estimate around a bit in the 32%-33% range but without clear evidence of significant change.

























The last six polls also demonstrate some persistent differences between polls. The NPR Poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) has a persistent positive house effect, making NPR one of the higher measures of Bush approval. In the opposite direction, Harris has a persistently negative reading of approval. In the figure below, we see that both are outliers in the current approval trend.

But this is a good example of when being an "outlier" doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with the polling. NPR samples "likely voters" and we know from other analysis that samples of likely voters are generally more approving of President Bush. Likewise, Harris (along with Zogby) uses a four point approval scale, "Excellent", "Good", "Fair" and "Poor" while everyone else uses "Approve" or "Disapprove". Harris and Zogby (and me) arbitrarily map "excellent" and "good" into "approve", and "fair" and "poor" into "disapprove". But is that the right way to make different answers comparable? Do the first two of these choices mean exactly what "approve" means? No. This is just the best categorization possible for mapping these four response options into two. And one consequence is that Harris and Zogby tend to come in below the estimated trend.

The choices these polling organizations make to sample likely voters rather than adults, or to use a four choice approval measure, are not in any sense "wrong" decisions. But they do mean that the results these pollsters get will be somewhat different from what others, using different samples and different questions, will find. But the choices DO make these polls more likely to be "far" away from the trend which is based on all pollsters.

So why call them outliers? Simply because they are, in fact, well away from the trend and the distribution of everyone else. In some cases that might indicate a "bad" poll, a sample that for some reason is far from what we would normally expect, or perhaps a biased question wording or sequence of questions. But being an outlier can also result from making choices of sample or question or other procedures which are different from most. Different yes, not necessarily bad.

But different is surprising, nonetheless. My goal here is to put everyone's polling in perspective, and these two do deserve to be labeled "outliers" because they are in fact different. A normal reader of polls without benefit of the perspective we provide here, would reasonably ask how can NPR get Bush at 38% and Harris have him at 27% (and the trend estimator be at 33%?) That surprise factor is also part of what being an outlier means. Without some further explanation (sample, question wording) the results appear puzzling. An outlier may be understandable or explicable, as both of these appear to be. Or in may not. Either way outlier detection draws attention and asks for an explanation or a discounting of the finding.

Bush Approval: 4 New Polls, Trend at 33.3%

A very busy week for pollsters with four new polls today. CNN/ORC was conducted 9/7-9/07, finding 36% approval of President Bush's job performance while 61% disapprove. Harris, done 9/7-10/07 gets 31% approval, 67% disapproval, while AP/Ipsos from 9/10-12/07 puts approval at 33% and disapproval at 64%. The latest is the Fox poll taken 9/11-12/07 which finds approval at 37% and disapproval at 58%.

The addition of these four polls raises the trend estimate of approval to 33.3%. This is the first time since May 9 that approval has reached the one-third point.

The new polls are nicely balanced around the current estimate: Fox and CNN are about as far above the trend as Harris and AP are below it. You can get a sense of the house effects of each of these pollsters from the chart below.
























The balance of polls above and below trend is also evident in the residuals plot below. No recent poll is close to being an outlier. All of the last 10 polls lie within the normal range of sampling variation.

With President Bush scheduled to address the nation tonight about Iraq policy it will be very interesting to see if the current upturn in approval is sustained. The testimony by General Petraeus and the President's speech could (I stress could) convince some citizens to give the Iraq policy more time, or could push in the opposite direction among those who were hopeful of a faster reduction in forces. (Note I'm talking about those still on the fence enough about Iraq to be affected either way. Obviously a lot of people have long since made up their minds in either direction and are unlikely to be affected by the testimony or the speech.)

Bush Approval: 3 New Polls; Trend at 32.5%

August was a slow month for polling generally, but we've had a nice new surge of September polling, including Presidential approval.

The three new polls are ABC/WP taken 9/4-7/07 which finds approval at 33%, disapproval at 64%, CBS/NYT done 9/4-8/07 with approval at 30%, disapproval at 64% and Gallup/USAToday from 9/7-8/07 getting approval at 33% and disapproval at 62%. A nicely consistent bunching of results.

The trend estimate stands at 32.5%, an estimate that has been pretty steady over recent polling. The upward movement of approval since June continues to be apparent, though there has been some flattening of recent estimates, suggesting the increase may have plateaued around the 32%-33% range. (See the last dozen or so estimates (red dots) in the final plot below.)

No recent polls are close to outlier status.

Bush Approval: 3 New Polls, Trend at 32.6%

There have been three new polls since my last update of approval of President Bush. The USA Today/Gallup poll done 8/13-16/07 found approval at 32%, disapproval at 63%. A Pew Research poll taken 8/1-18/07 got approval at 31%, disapproval at 59%, and the Fox News poll done 8/21-22/07 put approval at 33%, disapproval at 56%.

With these three polls, the trend estimate is 32.6%, a small continued gain over the previous batch of polling.

The plot below shows the six most recent polls in relation to the trend estimate.

























None of the recent polls qualify as outliers, with all comfortably within the 95% confidence interval.

Bush Approval: 5 New Polls, Trend at 32.4%

I've been off-line the past week, recovering from vacation. But the polls haven't stopped, and I'm now back to work as well.

We saw five new polls last week on approval of President Bush. A CNN/ORC poll taken 8/6-8/07 found approval at 36%, disapproval at 61%. The Associated Press/Ipsos poll also on 8/6-8/07 has approval at 35%, disapproval at 62%. The Reuters/Zogby poll done 8/9-11/07 got approval at 32%, disapproval at 67%. The CBS News poll done 8/8-12/07 put approval at 29%, disapproval at 65% and the Quinnipiac University survey of 8/7-13/07 finds approval at 29% and disapproval at 64%.

With these new polls the trend estimate of approval now stands at 32.4%. At the moment none of the last 10 polls qualify as outliers, with some above and some below the trend estimate but none further away than we would expect given the variability in polling. It remains to be seen whether the current upturn in approval that began after June 28 is continuing up. The Quinnipiac and CBS results at 29% are more than 3 points below trend, but not abnormally so and both polls typically run a bit below trend, so they don't give much evidence of a new downturn. Let's get some more data to answer that question.

Bush Approval: Gallup/USAT 34%, Trend 31.4%

A new Gallup/USAToday poll taken 8/3-5/07 finds approval of President Bush at 34%, disapproval at 62%. This is in line with recent improvement in the President's approval rating across a number of polls. The current trend estimate now stands at 31.4%.

For a full discussion of the current upturn in approval see here, here, here and here.

The more sensitive red line estimator and my standard more reliable blue line estimator are in good agreement now about when the low point of approval occurred, though not yet agreed on how low the low point of approval was. The current estimates of approval are reasonably close, as is the agreement on the current upward trend.

Bush Approval: Newsweek 29%, Trend 30.7%

It has been a busy week for presidential approval polls. Newsweek is the latest to report. Their survey taken 8/1/07 finds approval at 29% and disapproval at 63%. This is Newsweek's second consecutive poll at 29%, but up from the two previous Newsweek polls both at 26%.

With the new data the approval trend estimate stands at 30.7%.

None of the diagnostics change significantly since the previous approval updates this week here and here, which offer more discussion of recent trends and the timing of the recent upturn in approval.

Bush Approval: DemoCorps 36-Pew 29-Trend 30.8

A new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner/Democracy Corps poll, taken 7/25-29/07 finds approval of President Bush at 36%, with disapproval at 60%. The new Pew Center poll, also taken 7/25-29/07 puts approval at 29%, disapproval at 61%.

With these two new polls the trend estimate of approval now stands at 30.8%.

The GQR/Democracy Corps poll is a statistical outlier, falling above the 95% confidence interval around the approval trend. At the moment we have two outliers-- ARG's 25% is below the confidence interval.

GQR/Democracy Corps polls are of likely voters, rather than adults as with most polls here. As a result, they consistently estimate approval levels higher than for the adult population and hence above the trend line as well. This is clear from the plot below showing "Greenberg" surveys tracking high. This is a "design decision" to survey likely voters, and should not be considered a defect in the poll. Inferences are to a different population from that of the general population.
























The "house effect" estimate for GQR/Democracy Corps surveys is just below 3 percentage points, with a confidence interval from just under 2 to just under 4 points. Despite this substantial house effect, GQR surveys have only rarely exceeded the confidence interval for presidential approval.

As the number of recent polls has increased, the standard "blue line" estimator of support has increased it's "bend" and is coming closer to the more sensitive "red line" estimator, further evidence that approval trends changed direction around June 28, when the red estimator put approval at 28.7%. Currently the blue estimator agrees with that date as the turning point, though the estimate will continue to change until enough data are available for a stable estimate of the turning point.

While the change in support is now pretty clear, the reasons are less so. The timing coincides with a series of Supreme Court decisions, all carried by the majority created with Bush's appointments of Roberts and Alito. I don't think the Court is salient enough with the general population to be a strong driver of public opinion, especially of presidential approval. However, it is possible that the most politically involved conservatives were both aware of the decisions and gave Bush credit for his appointments, helping arrest his decline in the polls.

The other event about this time was the commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence on July 2. Initial reaction among the general population and even many self-described conservatives was disapproving of this decision. But here too the effect may have been positive among conservative Republicans and served to shore up support among that constituency.

But that said, unlike previous sharp turning points that have corresponded to major presidential speeches, this one is harder to account for with "obvious" actions of the President (or of Congress, for that matter.) I invite your speculation on this.

Bush Approval: Three new polls, Trend at 29.6%

New polls have moved noticeably above President Bush's recent low point of approval, though the current trend estimate remains below 30%. New polls have generally fallen at 30% approval and above, though one is as low as 25%. This change of trend was first discussed about a week ago here. Since then, the evidence for a shift in trend has mounted.

The ARG poll, taken 7/18-21/07, sets the low point at 25% approval, 71% disapproval. Gallup, done 7/12-15/07 got approval at 31%, disapproval at 63%. CBS/New York Times has two recent results: 7/9-17/07 has approval at 29%, disapproval at 64%, while the newest CBS/NYT poll of 7/20-22/07 puts approval at 30%, disapproval at 62%. Fox, 7/17-18/07 has approval at 32%, disapproval at 61%, while ABC/Washington Post 7/18-21/07 estimates approval at 33% and disapproval at 65%. So that puts four of the last six polls above 30% with only one in the mid-20s, where polling in late June was falling.

The trend estimate now stands at 29.6%, and the slope of the trend has clearly begun to bend from a steep downward trend to a less negative one. This is classic behavior of my standard "old blue" estimator. It takes a while to change direction, and while it does it slowly bends until it shifts direction entirely. In contrast, the "ready red" estimator is more sensitive and picks up on direction changes more quickly. The red line in the figure above shows a sharp change at just under 29% to a current estimate of just under 31% approval. The red line is often too sensitive, mistaking short term random noise for real change. However, we've now accumulated enough supporting polls to make me more confident that the upturn in the red estimator is probably real. At the same time, this does not mean the trend will remain as sharply up as the red estimator seems to suggest. That won't be known for a while yet, as more polls help define what the path of the next month or so is.

Recent polls have fallen above and below the trend estimate, and at the moment none of the last 10 polls constitutes an outlier, though there are both high and low polls rather close to the confidence interval limits. This range of results is also reflected in the very wide gray area at the end of the trend in the Bootstrap plot below. The wide gray area reflects our uncertainty about where approval is right now in a time of change in direction.

Finally, the last plot below shows the most recent 20 estimates of approval. The red dots trace out the clear decline, low point, and move back upwards in the "old blue" estimator. So even that estimator is feeling a change.