"Gallup polling shows that Trump's approval ratings at the six-month mark in both of his terms are lower than any other modern president at the same time in their administrations, at 38% and 40% for each term respectively."

This is actually pretty funny as they link to 3 polls in the article itself:

YouGov/Economist: 42%
Morning Consult: 45%
Rasmussen: 49%

This would give an average of 45.3% - but, then it would not make headlines. So, they chose the 1 outlier poll. ----, the RCP average even has Trump at 46.3% - this is reason why NO ONE believes the lying MSM anymore. Total fake news all the time.

"they pick a poll that has been around decades so they can compare current data to historical data and draw the conclusion based on that poll.
#7 | Posted by jpw"

Per usual - YOU MISS THE POINT. The 'poll that has been around for decades' is a COMPLETE OUTLIER - which means it is either complete garbage now (and should not be believed) or it has always been complete garbage (just lacking alternative polls in the past to expose it as such) - and thus - should not be believed.

The only think that we know for certain when we have a poll that is 2.4 standard deviations from the mean is that IT IS A ---- POLL NOW AND SHOULD BE IGNORED.

From your beaker washing prep courses - how should one regard a data point 2.4 standard deviations from the mean -------? Is it in the .8% of observations in the lower tail? Would you use that data point as a judge of the current approval? I should rephrase - would a non-smooth brained beaker washer use that data point as a judge of the current approval?

Lastly on the Gallup garbage outlier poll - why is it, do you think, that they don't make the cross tabs available?