Bush Job Approval at a 3-Year Low in Newsweek Poll (Update1)
Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's approval rating is 48 percent, the lowest in three years, and 50 percent don't want him to be re-elected in November, a Newsweek poll said.
The nationwide poll of 1,004 adults Feb. 5-6 showed that 45 percent said they would like to see Bush re-elected, the magazine said. Bush's job approval was 49 percent in last week's Newsweek poll, and 50 percent the week before. This week's rating was the lowest since February 2001, a month after Bush took office. The survey has a 3 percentage-point error margin.
Democratic frontrunner John Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, would win the election over Bush if the contest were held today, with 50 percent of voters supporting Kerry, the new Newsweek poll found. About 45 percent said they would vote for Bush.
Bush would beat Kerry's Democratic rivals, the survey found. The poll showed Bush leads North Carolina Senator John Edwards by 49 percent to 44 percent, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean by 50 percent to 44 percent, and retired Army General Wesley Clark by 51 percent to 43 percent.
Another survey showed Bush's decline in public opinion started after David Kay, who quit in January as leader of the search for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, said he didn't believe the Middle Eastern country had any of the banned weapons, the Associated Press reported.
January Slide
The National Annenberg Election Survey found Bush's approval rating fell 10 points from Jan. 25-31, to 54 percent from 64 percent. The tracking poll of 1,032 adults takes a nightly sample and rolls together two or three nights' findings at a time. It has a 3 percentage-point error margin.
Public support for Bush declined 9 percentage points over the last month, according to an AP-Ipsos poll of U.S. adults released yesterday.
Approval of Bush was 47 percent in the Feb. 2-4 AP-Ipsos survey, down from 56 percent a month ago. For the first time in the two years that the survey has tracked the question, more respondents said they would definitely vote against Bush than for him. The margin was 43 percent to 37 percent, the AP said.
The Newsweek poll found 58 percent of Americans say gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to marry, while 33 percent disagreed. Forty-seven percent say they would favor a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, while 45 percent oppose it. |
