And George W. Bush's approval rating drops to 30 percent, according to the latest CBS News poll. Two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about the new Congress. Consider this an open thread...

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So much for the Bush boomlet.

Following an all-out offensive by the White House during August, President Bush's approval rating appeared to move up from the mid-30s up to the low-40s -- still bad, but not nearly as terrible as before. With the President's approval rating around 42 percent and perhaps trending upwards, endangered Republicans could at least consider beckoning him to come fundraise for him.

But now the tide is changing. Charlie Cook has a hunch "we may be about to see" an inflection point that "will shift momentum the opposite way and tilt the playing field back in favor of Democrats." Judging by the polling released a few hours after Cook's email hit my email box, it appears that his prediction is correct.

According to Opinion Research survey commissioned by CNN (.pdf), 39 percent of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as President, down three points in a week. The President's disapproval rating was up four points to 59 percent over that same time period. By a 58 percent to 41 percent margin, Americans believe "the Bush administration has deliberately misled the American public about how the war in Iraq is going." And on the generic congressional ballot queestion, the Democrats' lead is up seven points among Americans, though effectively unchanged among likely voters, who favor them by a 53 percent to 42 percent margin.

The Wall Street Journal and NBC News (.pdf) also commissioned polling over the weekend and found similar results. Like the CNN poll, the WSJ/NBC poll found President Bush's approval rating at 39 percent, down three points since September. These numbers reflect registered voters rather than all Americans. The WSJ/NBC survey did not ask a generic congressional ballot question, though it did bring up two interesting questions that show movement along those lines. Asked if "what you have seen and heard over the past few weeks made you feel more favorable, less favorable, or had no effect on your feelings about possibly having the Republicans maintain the majority in Congress," just 18 percent of voters responded more favorable while 41 percent indicated less favorable. When asked the same question about Democrats, registered voters were more favorable than less favorable by a 34 percent to 23 percent margin. Importantly, when registered voters were given arguments for and against the so-called "compromise" detainee legislation, 47 percent opposed it and 43 percent supported it.

Taken together, these polls indicate that things may indeed be beginning to move in a negative direction for both congressional Republicans and President Bush -- even as voters have yet to have time to fully digest the news and apparent cover-up of Mark Foley's immoral and potentially illegal dealings with teenage pages.

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I've been watching with great interest the last several weeks as pundits, bloggers, columnists, some pollsters, and other "experts" have made a big deal of the "Bush bounce" that they clearly see in some poll numbers,  and how this points to a big shift in momentum back towards Republican candidates for Congress this fall.  With the flood of conflicting poll numbers out there, it does get difficult at times to separate the real trends from statistical noise. So what's going on here? Is the president's popularity really coming back, and more importantly, will this help Republicans stem their losses in November? And, almost as importantly, what is causing this upswing in presidential approval?
       

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The SUSA Bush approval ratings for August are in, and he's at 38% approval, despite his much touted noninvolvement in foiling the latest terrorism plot.  

As usual, Utah and Idaho still give him high marks. Wyoming and Oklahoma give him lower net positives, and the other 46 states, including all 11 Confederate States, give him net disapproval.  As usual, the Northeast, together with Illinois and Michigan, give Bush his worst numbers.

More analysis below the fold.

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For those who remain skeptical about the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released yesterday showing the Democrats maintaining a record 18-point generic congressional ballot lead, an Ipsos poll commissioned by the Associated Press seems to provide some confirmation.

On the generic question of whether voters would back the Democrat or Republican, 55 percent of registered voters chose the Democrat and 37 percent chose the Republican, a slight increase for Democrats from last month.

According to the AP/Ipsos poll, President Bush's approval rating has dropped all of the way down to it's May low of 33 percent. More worrisome for the White House and Republicans in Congress, close to one in five voters (19 percent) who supported Bush's reelection bid in 2004 plan to vote Democratic this fall. These numbers significantly undercut the internal Republican polling and memo obtained yesterday by US News (.pdf) which showed Republican voters excited to vote and prepared to support GOP candidates by an 84 percent to 6 percent margin.

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