It now appears as if President George Bush’s poll ratings are stalled — either staying the same, or heading south more than they’re heading north. The latest Zogby poll won’t spark high-fives at the White House:
President Bush’s job approval rating dipped two points in the last three weeks, despite the foiling of an airline terror plot and the adoption of a cease–fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.
The survey was conducted Aug. 11–15, 2006, included 1,018 respondents, and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.1 percentage points.
The numbers continue to reflect erosion in the President’s political base – just 62% of Republicans give him positive marks for his job performance, while 38% give him negative marks. Even among weekly WalMart shoppers – a demographic group identified by Pollster John Zogby as a critical support group for Bush – just 45% now give him positive job marks, though his numbers among those shoppers have improved 10 points since early June.
More than three out of four – 76% – of weekly WalMart shoppers voted for Bush over Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, earlier Zogby polling showed.
Among both conservatives and those who consider themselves very conservative, 59% give him positive marks, while 41% in each group gave him a negative job rating.
“President Bush’s numbers mainly reflect the country’s thinking on the war in Iraq, and most people have made up their minds that the war overall has not been worth the loss of American lives. Terrorism is an important issue to Americans, but when it comes to judging Bush’s presidency, their decision is based largely on Iraq.�
The question becomes: how could the White House change these numbers between now and election day? It may be that the American public has made up its mind about the Bush presidency and Iraq weighs heavily in that perception. And polls indicate that more Americans now think Iraq was a mistake, even some of those who may have supported the decision to go in based on the info that the administration provided at the time.
STILL: Keep in mind that polls do differ but the key is to look for trends. Rasmussen finds Bush’s poll numbers slowly going up:
Forty-two percent (42%) of American adults approve of the way that President Bush is performing his job as President. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove. These figures include 19% who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance and 41% who Strongly Disapprove (see comments on comparing Job Approval numbers from different polling firms).
A week ago Bush was at 39 percent in the Rasmussen poll.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.