Remember that NPR/PBS poll conducted by Marist last week after Joe Biden’s State of the Union address? It looks more like an outlier after three more national polls show nothing more than margin-of-error shifts in Biden’s job approval ratings. The NPR/PBS poll showed Biden gaining seven points in approval and improving five points in disapproval from his standing prior to the SOTU, although he barely budged among independents — a very curious outcome.

Today’s new poll from Morning Consult keeps Biden pretty much at the status quo ante, even though Politico talks up the shift:

President Joe Biden’s approval rating is on the rise — for now — in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s State of the Union address last week.

Multiple surveys over the past week, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out Tuesday, show a modest-to-moderate uptick in voters’ views of Biden’s job performance, up from his low-water mark earlier this year.

Forty-five percent of registered voters surveyed in the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll approve of the job Biden is doing, up 4 points over the past week. But a narrow majority, 51 percent, still disapproves of Biden’s job performance.

Worth noting: Democratic voters make up 40% of the Politico/Morning Consult sample, with Republicans at 34% and independents at 26%. Its previous iteration was 38/25/27. Perhaps Morning Consult does some modeling to correct this large oversampling of Democrats at the expense of independents, but if not, then at least some of this gain looks more like a sample issue. That becomes more important when one knows where Biden’s approval increase originates in this poll:

In the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, Biden’s gains came mostly from Democratic voters, suggesting the Ukraine crisis and his nationally televised address united elements of the president’s base but made few inroads with other voters. His approval rating among Democrats rose 7 points over the past week but was essentially unchanged among Republicans and independents.

The approval rating from Democrats is 84/13, not exactly an impressive figure considering the highly partisan nature of American politics. Republicans are almost the mirror image at 11/88. However, among independents, Biden’s approval rating is 31/62, far below the topline approval number highlighted by Politico. Like the NPR/PBS poll conducted by Marist, the disconnect between the indie figure and the overall figure raises plenty of questions about the methodology that produced these results.

Other poll results are a bit more straightforward. Allahpundit highlighted other eye-popping aspects of the Quinnipiac poll published yesterday, but let’s look at Biden’s job approval there. Biden has barely budged in this survey, although he had been creeping up from a floor of 33% in January before:

For his overall job approval, Americans give Biden a negative 38 – 51 percent job approval rating with 11 percent not offering an opinion. This compares to a negative 37 – 52 percent job approval rating a week ago.

In today’s poll, registered voters give Biden a negative 40 – 51 percent job approval rating with 9 percent not offering an opinion. This compares to a negative 38 – 52 percent job approval rating a week ago.

Biden’s job approval rating has been steadily inching higher since he hit a low in a January 12, 2022 Quinnipiac University poll when Americans gave him a negative 33 – 53 percent job approval rating and registered voters gave him a negative 35 – 54 percent job approval rating.

Again, Biden’s score with independents is brutal — 30/51, with only 14% strongly approving. For that matter, only 47% of Democrats strongly approve of Biden’s performance, hardly the stuff of bounces. Biden remains underwater in most Q-poll demos except Democrats, white college-degreed voters (51/43), and an anemic endorsement from black voters (57/35, only 34% strongly approving). Biden’s underwater everywhere else, including among women overall (barely at 42/45), white women (40/53), and Hispanics (37/45).

Nor does Biden’s Q-poll ratings on Ukraine look like a bounce is forming soon. Biden might have expected a rally-round-the-leader effect on this issue, but instead he’s at 42/45, with indies giving him a 37/47.

We also have IBD/TIPP, whose post-SOTU polling nearly parallels the NPR/PBS/Marist survey. Biden’s approval rating didn’t budge much at all from their survey a month earlier:

The March IBD/TIPP Poll finds that Biden’s approval rating edged up eight-tenths of a point to 45.2 over the past month, after slumping to the lowest point of his presidency in February. That index measure indicates that 45.2% of adults surveyed approve of Biden’s job performance, excluding those who were unsure or declined to state an opinion.

Biden’s 45.2 approval rating from IBD/TIPP reflects the disapproval of 47% of adults, while 39% approve of how he’s handling his job. American adults disapproved of Biden’s job performance 48%-38% in February and 45%-44% in January.

Biden’s overall approval rating barely bounced, though he did gain among Democrats, who now back Biden’s job performance 74%-15%. That compares to 66%-21% in February and 74%-18% in January. However, independents continued to disapprove of Biden’s job performance by a lopsided margin: 53%-27% vs. 55%-27% in February. Republican disapproval grew to 87%-8% from 83%-11% the prior month.

IBD/TIPP has proven friendlier to Biden than other polling series, most notably Quinnipiac. The overall thrust of post-SOTU polling thus far is that Biden’s not seeing any appreciable bounce, except that which pollsters can create on their own.