New polls from Hotline and NBC/WSJ continue to raise the trend estimate for approval of President Bush, taking the estimate above 30% for the first time in a while.
Hotline, taken 7/19-22/07 has approval at 33%, disapproval at 63%. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll done 7/27-30/07 has approval at 31 and disapproval at 63%.
With these new data, the approval trend now stands at 30.2%. This is in keeping with the upturn in approval first noted here, and confirmed by recent polls. Of course, 30.2% is nothing to brag about, but it is a tad better than being in the 20s.
The exact timing of the change remains unclear from my standard estimator, but the more sensitive "red" estimator thinks the turn was sharp and the rise has been substantial. Remember, "red" is often fooled by a few polls, so retain some skepticism about the red estimator, but we've got enough recent polls to make me pretty confident "red" has the story right, if not the exact timing or extent of the rise.
With the new trend estimate, the ARG poll at 25% has now moved clearly into outlier territory. This is a good example of how determining what is or is not an outlier can shift as more complete data arrive.
