All the President's Numbers
By RYAN LIZZA - OP ED - NYT
WASHINGTON
Polls are to Washington what box scores are to cities that have a baseball team: they are scrutinized obsessively by partisans. This week the news has been especially startling. After weeks of accusations of Bush administration negligence (or worse) before the 9/11 commission and bloody unrest in Iraq, George W. Bush has ticked past John Kerry in three new national polls.
An ABC News/Washington Post survey released on Tuesday recorded a five-point lead among registered voters for Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry when Ralph Nader was offered as a choice (48 percent to 43 percent to 6 percent) and a one-point lead when the matchup was narrowed to President Bush and Senator Kerry (49 percent to 48 percent). In a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll released the same day, Mr. Bush led Mr. Kerry 47 percent to 44 percent, with Mr. Nader drawing 5 percent. Without Mr. Nader it was Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry 50 percent to 46 percent. The next day, a poll from Investor's Business Daily confirmed the trend, showing Mr. Bush at 44 percent, Mr. Kerry at 40 percent and Mr. Nader at 4 percent.
The reaction was predictable. Mr. Bush's chief campaign strategist bragged that the president had defied the "pundits" with his strong position, while Democrats were crestfallen. If Mr. Kerry can't hold onto a lead during one of the worst stretches of the incumbent's presidency, they whispered, how can he defeat Mr. Bush when things get brighter for the president?
But Democrats should pause before they give up — and Republicans shouldn't celebrate quite yet. President Bush's vulnerabilities remain, even if they were not as apparent in this week's polls as they were in previous surveys; the question is whether Mr. Kerry can exploit them.
In none of the polls this week that purported to show the Bush surge does the president have majority support. Any politician running for re-election sweats when a poll shows him under 51 percent. Voters who say they are undecided almost always end up opposing the incumbent — they know him well, and if they were going to vote for him, they would have already decided. Thus support for Mr. Bush should be seen more as a ceiling, while support for Mr. Kerry, the lesser-known challenger, is more like a floor.
President Bush's overall job approval rating should also be cause for concern. He is trailing behind the last two presidents to be re-elected. Ronald Reagan was at 54 percent at about this point in 1984, while Bill Clinton clocked in at 56 percent in April 1996. Mr. Bush is hanging by his fingertips with a 51 percent and 52 percent rating in two polls released Tuesday. And remarkably, after one of the most concentrated television advertising campaigns in political history, Mr. Bush has seemingly failed to shift a single voter's view of him personally. What pollsters call his "favorability rating" is almost exactly where it was before his ads began.
The other numbers that keep presidents awake at night are the so-called "right direction/wrong track" figures, which ask voters about the general direction of the country and often serve as a leading indicator for a politician's overall health. Here, the news must be worrying to the White House. Even as Mr. Bush's numbers against Mr. Kerry and his job approval rating have risen slightly, the percentage of Americans who believe that "things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track" has climbed to 57 percent from 46 percent last April.
Growing concern about Mr. Bush's Iraq policies is also evident. According to one poll, 54 percent of voters disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, and a record 65 percent believe the level of American casualties in Iraq is "unacceptable."
Why, then, did these same polls record a small increase for Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry? Mr. Bush's $50 million ad campaign probably had a small impact, as did Americans' tendency to rally to his side during a particularly trying period of the war.
Whatever the explanation, these polls are neither as dismaying (to Democrats) nor as encouraging (to Republicans) as they appear. In fact, given the margin of error in this week's surveys — it hovers between 3 percent and 3.5 percent — the only safe conclusion is that the race is a dead heat. At least until the next round of polls is released.
Ryan Lizza is an associate editor at The New Republic.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
