bush approval harris 87 at 34

Bush Approval: Harris (8/7) at 34%

A Harris poll taken 8/4-7/06 finds approval at 34% and disapproval at

66%. That is unchanged since the previous Harris reading 7/7-10. With

the addition of this poll and the AP "outlier" from 8/7-9, this brings

the estimated trend to 37.4%, with a small downward trend. If we

exclude the AP, then the trend estimate is 38.0% and the trend is

slightly rising. Both estimates include the Harris reading. The plot

above includes the AP poll in the trend. I've never excluded a poll

from the trend estimate, even if the evidence shows it to be an

outlier. Any effect will be diminished with a few more polls.

But this does pose a bit of a question of what's happening to

approval. I've maintained that the evidence prior to the Harris and AP

polls was that approval was increasing at a very slow rate of about 1

percentage point per month since June 20. With the Harris poll that

rate of increase would be decreased, and the inclusion of AP reverses

the trend direction, though by a small amount.

First, note that the last four Harris readings have been 29, 33, 34

and 34. That is consistent with what the overall trend has done-- a

low point followed by increase followed by either slow or stagnant

trend thereafter. Harris's low level of approval is consistent with

the Harris house effect, which is the most negative house effect of

the 22 polls I track house effects for. Here is an updated table of

house effects on approval:

The Harris estimate is -2.94, which is consistent with the purple line

in the top figure, showing Harris consistently below the estimated

trend. Applied to the current estimate, that would say Harris+2.94

would be about 37%, which is in striking distance of the 38% trend

estimate without AP or the 37.4% with AP. So Harris doesn't appear WAY

out of line with the trend, given it's large house effect.

Yesterday I showed that the AP reading at 33% IS an outlier. If we add

the Harris poll into the data, since it was completed before the AP

poll, this conclusion remains unchanged-- even revising the approval

trend to include Harris does not stop AP from being outside the 90%

confidence interval. However, Harris does not appear to be an outlier

regardless of what method is used to test that (either with or without

accounting for house effects.)

So I'm left wondering if the small downturn we now see with Harris and

AP (and Fox at 36) added to the trend is telling the future or not.

Given the three 40% readings in the first week of August, it is not

really credible that approval has jumped down to the 33-36 range from

the 38% range of the trend estimate before these new polls came in.

And Harris and AP do have relatively large and negative house effects

(Fox is a modest +0.64), so it isn't surprising they would be below

trend.

Lacking a crystal ball, I'll wait for more data. Certainly this week's

data have reduced the credibility of rising approval and increased the

evidence for a flat period. Whether that will turn into a decline or

new rebound or just plain stability is unclear.