In today's Gallup 3-day rolling average of Obama's job approval, something very unusual happened. Obama's approval rating spiked from +6 (50% approve/44% disapprove) to +12 (54% approve/42% disapprove). Spikiness in poll data is normal, which is why they do the rolling average to begin with. But this was a big spike in the rolling average itself and not something you see every day.
On the Gallup website, the data is presented in a very ugly graph. To view the tabular data, you needed to download a .csv file that brings up Excel. Somewhat annoying normally, but helpful for attempting to "detrend" the data as I have done below. The Obama approval spike yesterday being so dramatic does allow a fairly accurate estimation of what the daily, unaveraged poll numbers were for the past two weeks:
Dates |
Gallup 3-Day Avg |
Diff |
App+DisAp |
Recovered Daily #s |
Diff |
App+DisAp |
Average |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
App+DisAp |
09/17-19/2012 |
46 |
48 |
-2 |
94 |
|
|
|
|
|
09/18-20/2012 |
47 |
48 |
-1 |
95 |
50 |
45 |
+5 |
95 |
|
09/19-21/2012 |
47 |
46 |
+1 |
93 |
50 |
44 |
+6 |
94 |
|
09/20-22/2012 |
51 |
43 |
+8 |
94 |
52 |
41 |
+11 |
93 |
94 |
09/21-23/2012 |
51 |
42 |
+9 |
93 |
51 |
42 |
+9 |
93 |
93 |
09/22-24/2012 |
50 |
43 |
+7 |
93 |
48 |
45 |
+3 |
93 |
93 |
09/23-25/2012 |
51 |
43 |
+8 |
94 |
53 |
43 |
+10 |
96 |
94 |
09/24-26/2012 |
50 |
44 |
+6 |
94 |
48 |
44 |
+4 |
92 |
94 |
09/25-27/2012 |
50 |
45 |
+5 |
95 |
50 |
47 |
+3 |
97 |
95 |
09/26-28/2012 |
48 |
47 |
+1 |
95 |
45 |
49 |
-4 |
94 |
94 |
09/27-29/2012 |
46 |
46 |
0 |
92 |
44 |
42 |
+2 |
86 |
92 |
09/28-30/2012 |
47 |
46 |
+1 |
93 |
51 |
46 |
+5 |
97 |
92 |
09/29-10/1/2012 |
48 |
45 |
+3 |
93 |
50 |
46 |
+4 |
96 |
93 |
09/30-10/2/2012 |
50 |
44 |
+6 |
94 |
50 |
41 |
+9 |
91 |
95 |
10/1-3/2012 |
54 |
42 |
+12 |
96 |
61 |
39 |
+22 |
100 |
96 |
The first three columns are the dates and 3 day rolling averages from Gallup. The fourth column adds these numbers. Under "Recovered Daily #s", I have calculated the raw poll data for the last day of the 3 day period.
What is truly remarkable is the last line where approval plus disapproval equals 100%. The only way for Obama to have received a jump in net job approval from +6% to +12% is if all respondents who normally demure and give no opinion say that they approve of Obama's job performance. At least they did this yesterday. And if they did this yesterday, then probably they would do it the other days as well if pressed.