The next batch of approval ratings will hint if Bush's poll gain is legit

[Awsi Dooger]

They should be released more frequently as election day approaches. We desperately need to keep that number below 50%. TruthIsAll averages 11 numbers and it was 48.38% at last call.

However, I noticed Gallup jumped from 51% to 55%. They absurdly oversample GOP, but if more reliable pollsters like Zogby and American Research Group show a jump in Bush's approval number we can't discount Bush's gain in the polls. There is a direct relationship.

Notice Kerry's approval number did not drop in the Gallup poll, still 52%. By partisan logic it should have fallen if significantly more Republicans were polled this time than during the previous sample a week earlier.

I continue to believe, based on reactions of 19 mostly apolotical people who watched the debate at my home, that Bob Schieffer's jackass final question ("strong women in your life") allowed Bush to give a phony Average Joe response ("met Laura at a backyard barbeque"); restoring his likeability advantage and boosting his approval rating. It was the final impression coming out of the debates.

[diplomats]

1. We'll have to see

Right now, no other poll has Bush's rating above 49 percent, so Gallup has to be considered suspect at this point.

[oasis]

2. I'm not buying any propaganda from corporate owned and operated polls.

:boring: They can flush 'em all as far as I'm concerned.

[TheWebHead]

3. it will again depend on sampling

approval ratings are no different than election polls as far as that's concerned.

[DemocracyInaction]

4. You are seeing those who have listened to squat nothing for 4 years

going out to vote for a "name". This always happens. It will this time. Bush will gain and continue to gain in these polls up to vote time. We have to get more people to the polls than them. Some of these in the polls that are "comeing home for the Bush name" will not vote. They have churches and church TV and all sorts of good places to get their sheep out. That means we have to work 10,000 times better just to beat them by one vote. Are you up to it?? It you aren't, then we who have fought for decades won't carry you any longer.

[unfrigginreal]

5. Those are not Job Approval numbers from Gallup

they are Favorability numbers. As far as I know Gallup did not measure Job Approval in todays poll.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. Thanks, you are correct

And that's not the first time I've taken too brief of a glance and screwed that up.

[Nicholas_J]

6. One thing Zogby has pointed out

That regardless of oversampling Republicans, most people simply do not change their political stances in the period of a week. In order for Gallops polls to change to such a great degree in such a small period of time, a fairly large percentage of Democrats would suddenly have had to change their minds to support Bush. That is simply to say that people who had made up their minds to support Kerry in the last poll had suddenly decided to support Bush. Since there was no large change in the undecided numbers, this is the only way that Gallop could have gotten this sudden change in polling results in ten days. Unlikely accoring to pollsters like Zogby. And unlikely according to most of the rules of social psychology which indicate that once a person has made up their mind they are highly unlikely to change it. The only people who can be persuaded are those who are undecided.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Don't Think There Has Been An Election In The Post WW2 Era

where more Reps have shown up at the polls than Dems...

Even in big Republican blowouts like 72 and 84 more Dems than Reps showed up at the polls but Nixon and Reagan overwhelmingly carried the Independent vote and poached many votes from Democratic defectors...