Iraq and Economy Are Costing President, Opinion Polls Show
By JANET ELDER
Published: February 14, 2004
The public's confidence in George W. Bush is continuing to erode amid doubts about the Iraq war and sustained economic worries, according to opinion polls made public this week.
More than half the public does not approve of the way Mr. Bush is handling Iraq, the economy, job creation or health costs, according to an ABC News poll.
The wariness toward Mr. Bush comes at the same time as the public is paying more attention to the presidential campaign and while the Democratic nominating process is being played out, giving the public real alternatives to consider when deciding whether Mr. Bush should stay on for a second term.
Still, Mr. Bush's job approval ratings continue to hover around the 50 percent mark, with Newsweek measuring it at 48 percent, ABC News putting it at 50 percent, and the Gallup Poll at 52 percent.
While the ABC News poll found the public would rather turn to the Democrat John Kerry to handle domestic matters like creating jobs, improving education, containing health care costs and fixing the economy, they would rather turn to Mr. Bush to make decisions on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Mr. Bush continues to be seen as a strong leader.
In a hypothetical match-up between Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush, registered voters in the ABC News poll preferred Mr. Kerry over Mr. Bush, 52 percent to 43 percent. The nationwide telephone poll of 1,003 adults was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Gallup poll had the two men more closely matched, with 49 percent of the registered voters surveyed saying they would vote for Mr. Kerry and 48 percent saying they would vote for Mr. Bush. The Gallup poll was taken earlier, last Friday through Sunday, which was before Mr. Kerry won the Tennessee and Virginia caucuses, on Tuesday. The nationwide telephone poll of 888 registered voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In a finding that underscored just how polarized the nation is right now, Newsweek asked its poll respondents whether they would like to see Mr. Bush re-elected to another term as president. Forty-five percent of the voters surveyed said they would, while 50 percent said they would not. That nationwide telephone poll of 1,004 adults was conducted on Feb. 5 and Feb. 6, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
On the critical measure of trust, Mr. Bush's fortunes have also waned. When asked if Mr. Bush was honest and trustworthy, 52 percent of the respondents in the ABC News poll said he was and 45 percent said he was not. In September, 60 percent saw Mr. Bush as honest and trustworthy and 39 percent did not.
Questions about Mr. Bush's credibility stem in part from issues surrounding the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ABC News found that more than half the public, 54 percent, think the Bush administration intentionally exaggerated the evidence. Still, when asked if the administration had lied, a majority of those polled, 57 percent, said the administration had exaggerated without lying, while 39 percent said officials had lied.
The economic anxieties found in the national telephone polls are similar to those found in the surveys of voters leaving the polls in Tennessee and Virginia.
In Tennessee, for instance, only 12 percent of the Democratic primary voters said their families' financial situation was better today than it was four years ago. Forty-six percent said it was worse and 36 percent said it was about the same. In the ABC News nationwide poll, 14 percent said their family's finances were better than they were when Mr. Bush took office, 47 percent said their finances were worse, and 38 percent said they were unchanged.
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