Partisanship may be responsible for Obama’s improvement in other respects as well. In addition to the economy, the one factor that may most be helping Obama is the primary campaign. “Usually,” Sin points out, “presidents compete with opposition political actors, and are the sole recipient of most of the opposition criticisms: emphasizing the unfavorable issues and downplaying the favorable ones.” In other words, Obama’s approval is usually weakened by the fact that every Republican who appears on television talks about how awful Obama is.

But political news in the last months has been dominated by the primaries. Republicans have been aiming their fire at Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — and, perhaps most intensely, at each other. Republican actors have been so caught up in dealing with Donald Trump’s insurgent candidacy, and with his violation of civic norms, that they’ve had trouble doing much of anything else. Elites like former presidential nominee Mitt Romney and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat have been forced to concentrate on denouncing Trump rather than denouncing Obama. Even the pro-Trump gutter press outlet Breitbart has been reeling after Trump’s campaign manager allegedly assaulted one of the site’s reporters, leading to an exodus of talent when the editorial department failed to stand behind her.

Here’s the upshot: Republicans simply lack the energy and the resources to attack Obama at the moment, and that means he can present himself as statesmanlike and presidential without contradiction.