President Bush’s job approval is down to 34 percent in the CBS News poll.
The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.
Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they’re opposed to the agreement.
Not surprising, really. There has not been much good news since the successful Iraqi elections. The hurricanes, the upsurge of violence in Iraq, various political scandals, and the shooting incident involving the vice president have all taken a toll.
The entire poll, in PDF format, is available here.
Highlights:
BUSH’S HANDLING OF WAR ON TERROR: George W. Bush now receives the lowest marks of his Presidency, even on fighting terrorism, a measure that has long been his strongest suit. Half of Americans now disapprove of how he is handling that effort, while 43% approve.
A large majority of Republicans still approves of the President’s handling of terrorism, although their approval, like that of all adults, has dropped nine points in the last month, to 78% now. Most Democrats and Independents disapprove.
The decline here is likely a proxy for general frustration over the state of affairs combined with a sense that the war in Iraq is going badly. The unpopularity of the ports deal also likely factors in. While there is no great success that one could point to–the killing or capturing of Osama bin Laden or Abu Musaab al Zarqawi, for example–there has been no notable failure, either. Certainly, when the 9/11 attacks took place over four years ago, nobody was predicting there would not be another attack on U.S. soil by the end of February 2006.
THE IRAQ WAR: Americans’ perceptions of the U.S. effort in Iraq are at an all-time low. By two to one, Americans think U.S. efforts to bring stability an order to Iraq are going badly – the worst assessment they have made of progress in Iraq. Now, just 36% say things are going well for the U.S. in Iraq. The only other times fewer than 40% were positive were in spring 2004, right after the photographs of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison were published. In January, after the Iraqi election, 45% of American said things were going well.
Republicans are still positive about what’s happening in Iraq. Two-thirds of Republicans say the rebuilding effort is going well there. But that, too, has slipped a bit since January, when three-quarters thought so.
In both cases, the president is doing much better with his base than with the general public. That’s not all that surprising.
DOES BUSH CARE ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE YOU? For the first time in this poll, most Americans – 51% – say George W. Bush does not care much about people like themselves. Last fall, 47% thought he did not care. Today just 17% say Bush cares a lot about people like them, and another 30% think he cares some.
I have always thought that this was the silliest of all routine political polling questions. “Caring” is not part of the president’s job description. Still, it is probably the single best question for capturing how a leader is doing with the people. It tends to track extraordinarily well with the overall approval rating and probably gives a decent assessement of their baseline.
Update: Randy at RightWinged, Bill Quick, John Hawkins, and others point out that the poll sample is skewed Democrat, with 381 Democrats versus 289 Republicans in the weighted sample.
Still, while the 34% figure is low, that Bush’s numbers are low and getting lower is indisputable. RealClear Politics has the following summary:
|
President
George W. Bush – Job Approval Ratings |
||||
|
Poll
|
Date
|
Approve
|
Disapprove
|
Spread
|
|
RCP
Average |
2/15
– 2/26 |
40.4%
|
54.8%
|
-14.4%
|
|
2/24
– 2/26 |
43%
|
55%
|
-12%
|
|
|
2/23
– 2/26 |
40%
|
54%
|
-14%
|
|
|
2/22
– 2/26 |
34%
|
59%
|
-25%
|
|
|
2/16
– 2/19 |
45%
|
52%
|
-7%
|
|
|
2/15
– 2/16 |
40%
|
54%
|
-14%
|
|
Those numbers are, to say the least, not good. The CBS News poll is definitely the outlier. But even tossing their results entirely gives us an approval rating average of 42% and a disapproval average of 53.75% for the remaining four polls.
Further, some note that the survey is of “adults” rather than “likely voters.” That, too, is a fair point. The latter are far more useful at giving insights as to how public opinion will shape the November elections. Still, media polls taken this far out are almost always done that way, as screening for likely voters is expensive and polls in February are basically to fill column inches, not predict much of anything. And, of course, the president is not running for anything, so it is not entirely clear why it matters less what the general public thinks vice voters.
The bottom line is that, even if the CBS poll is junk, it draws attention to something that is undisputed: President Bush has lost the confidence of a substantial portion of the general public. True, given the polarized nature of our polity, he is unlikely to get much above 50% absent some catalyzing national event. But getting down to 40% approval essentially means he has lost the moderates, too, and is just clinging to the base.
That means little in the sense that Bush does not need to win another election. But it has a big bearing on the “political capital” that he was eager to spend after the 2004 victory. When a president, especially a lame duck president, is unpopular, his party’s congressional delegation is much more inclined to ignore his wishes and do whatever they think is in their own political interest. So, to the extent that conservatives support the Bush agenda, they should be concerned about these polls.
