Statistics: Presidential Approval Rating
In case you're wondering what the President's public approval rating is or was, I present Professor Pollkatz Current Approval Index. It's presented in statistics dork format (i.e., me) but its easy to find the current approval index in a box at the top of the chart. Today, it's 38.74%.
If you're dorky enough to care, it also shows the upper and lower limit within the 95% confidence interval. For example, on 10/20/05 the average approval rating of all the polls out there is 38.7%. It has an average margin of error of plus or minus 5.6%, so there is a 95% chance that the real approval rating could be anything between 33.14% and 44.34%, with a 5% chance that the number could be anything (I'm not going to bore you further by explaining confidence intervals).
Translating this into reality, if Bush's approval rating stays below about 44% for the next 12 months, we can confidently expect minor gains in the 2006 midterm elections. (Remember, there is no national election - only a series of gerrymandered Congressional districts and one third of the Senate, which only gives us about 30 competitive Congressional races and 8 competitive Senate races, some of which Democrats already hold and have to defend). If it stays like it is now - below 40% - Democrats can be expected to take back Congress. But that's an obscenely big if.
If you're dorky enough to care, it also shows the upper and lower limit within the 95% confidence interval. For example, on 10/20/05 the average approval rating of all the polls out there is 38.7%. It has an average margin of error of plus or minus 5.6%, so there is a 95% chance that the real approval rating could be anything between 33.14% and 44.34%, with a 5% chance that the number could be anything (I'm not going to bore you further by explaining confidence intervals).
Translating this into reality, if Bush's approval rating stays below about 44% for the next 12 months, we can confidently expect minor gains in the 2006 midterm elections. (Remember, there is no national election - only a series of gerrymandered Congressional districts and one third of the Senate, which only gives us about 30 competitive Congressional races and 8 competitive Senate races, some of which Democrats already hold and have to defend). If it stays like it is now - below 40% - Democrats can be expected to take back Congress. But that's an obscenely big if.
posted by SomeGuyInDC @ 6:55 AM
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