bush approval harris 26 trend272 but

Bush Approval: Harris: 26%, Trend:27.2%, But...

A new Harris Interactive poll taken 7/6-9/07 finds approval of

President Bush at 26%, with disapproval at 73%. With the addition of

this poll, the trend estimate stands at 27.2% approval. The Harris

polls is in line with a recent Newsweek at 26%, CBS at 27% and Gallup

at 29%. As can seen from the residual plot below, it is also well

within the range of expected variation for polls around the trend

estimate.

The "But..." in the title of the post is because it appears there is a

new AP/Ipsos poll with approval of Bush at 33%. An AP article on

economic confidence mentions this approval result, but so far I've not

seen an official release of presidential approval from the new

AP/Ipsos poll. Because the AP/Ipsos approval number is not yet

"official" (in my book at least) I will not do a post on it yet.

However, it would be deceptive to pretend I am unaware of that result.

So, the "But..." is that this AP poll should be officially released by

AP soon. When that happens, and assuming the correct number actually

is 33% (I assume it will be, since it was cited by an AP reporter, but

you never know for sure until the release is out), then the trend

estimate WITH AP will be 27.8%, rather than 27.2% with only the new

Harris. BUT since AP decided to use the number in a story prior to

releasing the official result, it is not yet certain (to me) that this

will be their result. (Perhaps final processing of the new AP/Ipsos

approval poll is not yet final, and a different result appears. But if

so, I am surprised it was allowed to be used in a story.)

The bottom line is that either way approval continues in the upper

20s, and that certainly remains bad for the administration.

With the Harris poll (but NOT AP) there are not concerns in the

diagnostics below, and the recent polling continues to follow the