Presidential Approval Overall: Net (Palanor Average)

## What this measures

Approve minus disapprove, in points of the president's handling of the job, averaged across published national polls each day: Palanor's own average (method approval-v2). Net readings are approve minus disapprove, in points. Each reading stores a band (`lo`, `hi`) and how many pollsters it rests on. The band was registered as a 95% band; in testing it was narrower than that (it held the next fortnight's cross-pollster level on about three days in four), so read it as the uncertainty of the average from the polls in hand, not a range for the next poll.

## How it's built

Each pollster counts once, with its most recent poll in the window. Polls are weighted by recency (a half-life of 10 days) and by sample size, shifted to an all-adults basis with population offsets estimated from polls that report several populations, and adjusted for each pollster's house effect, estimated from how its polls have run against the other pollsters over the past year. A day has a reading only when at least three pollsters are in the window. The method was registered in writing before any result was computed and is the same for every president: palanor.com/methodology/approval.

## How to read it

It summarises polls already published; it is not a forecast. Readings for recent days can change for a few days as releases that ended earlier are added. The average restarts at each inauguration. Undecided answers are not reallocated, so approve and disapprove can sum to under 100.

## What it does not say

Nothing about any official, party or election. Palanor does not project it (no Foresight). Prediction-market approval contracts are shown beside it on the methodology page, never blended in.

## Source

Palanor calculation (method approval-v2) from published national polls: the FiveThirtyEight polls archive (ABC News), CC BY 4.0, for 2017-01-20 to 2025-03-04, and each pollster's own public release since (facts only: dates, sample, population, question, topline, link). Polls fielded by Gallup, YouGov or Ipsos and polls sponsored by campaigns, parties or advocacy groups are not used. Refreshed daily by /api/cron/approval-sync.