Support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales amid bipartisan calls for his resignation is heading south, a new Rasmussen poll reveals:
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of American voters believe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 800 Likely Voters found that 31% disagree and say he should not resign while 30% are not sure. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Democrats believe he should resign along with 21% of Republicans and 42% of those not affiliated with either major party.
Public opinion of the Attorney General is declining. The current survey, completed Tuesday night March 20, finds that just 26% have a favorable opinion of Gonzales. That’s down six points from a survey conducted five days earlier. At the same time, the number with an unfavorable opinion of Gonzales has climbed to 52%. Last week, 49% had an unfavorable view, a figure that had already jumped up from 41% a month ago.
Those are pretty steep declines. But there’s more:
The number with a Very Unfavorable opinion of Gonzales is up to 28%. That’s a 3-point increase over the past week and a ten-point increase over the past month. Just 8% have a Very Favorable opinion, down from 11% last week.
While 39% believe the Attorney General should resign, 47% believe it is Somewhat or Very Likely that he will resign. The biggest reason for the gap can be found among Republicans. Twenty-one percent (21%) of GOP voters believe Gonzales should resign but 38% believe it is at least somewhat likely he will resign.
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Americans say they are following the stories surrounding Gonzales Somewhat or Very Closely.
The latter number is what is probably making some GOPers in Congress carefully debate what position they’ll take — and how they’ll take it — as President George Bush offers overt support for Gonzales (according to columnist Bob Novak, Bush already knows that Gonzales will have to leave that post): it is a story that is getting significant readership and viewership.
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.