Rassmussen has Bush Starting to Drop Again - 40%

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

Today, 40% of American adults approve of the way that President Bush is performing his job and 58% disapprove. That's slightly below where the numbers were before the President’s 9/11 speech, and at the same level as the August monthly average.

Men rate the President's performance more highly at 44%, while just 36% of women approve of the job he's been doing.

Rhode Island, Ohio and Montana each shifted from Toss-Up to "Leans Democrat" this week on our Senate Balance of Power summary. Our summary now shows 49 seats in the Republican column, 48 for the Democrats, and three Toss-Up races. (see State-by-State Summary).

Senator Joseph Lieberman (I) continues to sustain a bare lead, now 45% to 43%, over Democrat Ned Lamont in the closely watched Connecticut Senate race. The Connecticut Governor's race is less eventful, with Republican incumbent Jodi Rell holding a comfortable lead. New Mexico's Democratic incumbents in both the Governor and Senate races are also enjoying comfortable leads in the double-digits over their respective challengers.

[Drum]

1. Sounds like fewer in the middle to me....

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. This sounds more realistic......

Can we say that Gallup is an outlier? Or is their polling method weighted in favor of pubs? Other than the fact that Bush is on my damned tv everyday campaigning at the taxpayer's expense, I can't for the life of me figure out what he's said or done to account for Gallup's latest numbers.
:shrug:

[Jack Rabbit]

3. So much for that "masterstoke" of genius I just lambasted elsewhere

Take that, war cirminal.

And take that, Time Magazine.

[chill_wind]

4. CNN spinning "his new numbers" wildly all day today.

That's slightly below where the numbers were before the President’s 9/11 speech, and at the same level as the August monthly average.

You'd NEVER know this from their breezy coverage and straight-faced claims of recovering numbers. Bush Ho's, all.

[WCGreen]

5. And the Ironic thing is CNN and Gallop split over

"differences" in polling techinques a while back...

[Lasher]

15. Obvious cherrypicking and maybe worse.

The highly touted "latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll" ran from 9/15/06 to 9/17/06, but the corporate news media is not mentioning a 9/14/06 to 9/17/06 Survey USA poll that gave The Decider a 39% approval rating.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/

The Real Clear Politics composite shows Chimpy's approval rating at 40.8%, which is close to where it has been - despite this unusually high approval rating that Gallup has reported. For the record, this is the very first time I have ever seen any presidential approval poll higher than Rasmussen's during an equivalent time period.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/archive/?poll_id=19#data

And while you're at the above site, compare Gallup's latest generic congressional vote poll results with all the others.

[WCGreen]

6. Rass uses Likely voters and it is a rolling average which

is more acurate that a spot check as gallop does...

Also, Polls done over weekends tend to favor GOP...

More dem's, it seems, work on weekends..

[Jack Rabbit]

7. What spot does Gallup check?

The 19th hole of a ritzy private country club?

[WCGreen]

8. LOL.....

[FrenchieCat]

9. Which means that Bush is actually at 35%......

but the mediawhores are really trying hard to make him look good. Now why would that be? :eyes:

(this shit called an election is soooo fixed!)

[chill_wind]

10. You said it!!

Why, lookie right here--- at the droning blather on CNN all day today:

# "President Bush's approval rating has risen to 44% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. That's his highest rating in a year," reports USA Today. The poll was conducted September 15-17.

(bold face mine)

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/blog/

[BlueEyedSon]

12. Nah, 25%!

[ginnyinWI]

11. They were really spinning it tonight

To listen to them, the Repubs are going to hang onto both chambers (well, it was Laura Ingram.) This is actually good, because it might get more Dems off their backsides and out campaigning. But confidentially, I'm sure things are much worse for the GOP than they say.

[izzybeans]

13. His bump was within the margin of error anywho.

If you take an infinite number of random samples the averages and proportions will vary within a range; with a few of those samples producing odd outliers. Theoretically, the average of an infinite number of random samples represents the true population average. Each singular sample will contain sampling error that includes mismatched proportions from the population.

I don't think there is much short term variation on opinions, but rather that the avalanche of opinion polls on a weekly basis reflect mostly firm opinions with a few segments of the population that whimsically form opinions on singular events. Most people aren't that flighty; except for those who only get their political news from Inside Edition. I think this bump was a reflection of a different sample, and a different organization doing the polling. They all draw randomly and each sample taken will have random variations that will be reflected in the poll itself. The bump was likely a reflection of the sampling error, and not its representativeness. This was most likely a poll closely reflecting the upper range of opinion of a failed presidency.

[Roy]

14. Starting to drop, or exposing the other polls as mere PR? n/t