Zogby poll has Bush at 30% favorable. How much lower can it go?
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Released: December 08, 2006
Bush Job Approval: 30%
President slips to all-time low in the Zogby Poll as key demographic groups jump ship
The national job approval rating of President Bush has plummeted to 30%, an all–time low in the latest Zogby International telephone poll, sinking below the 31% approval rating he dropped to in early June.
The President’s positive job rating is down from 36% in late October, in the weeks heading into the congressional midterm elections. Since then, the Democrats swept to control of both houses of Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned and was replaced by Robert Gates, who said the U.S. is not winning the war in Iraq. Release of the Iraq Study Group’s report calling for significant change in the way the U.S. is conducting the Iraq war came as this latest Zogby poll was in the field.
Sixty–eight percent said they believe Bush is doing only a fair or poor job leading the nation.
Support for the President waned in key demographic groups, the Zogby poll shows. Among all Republicans, just 60% gave him a positive job rating, while 39% gave him negative marks. Just 9% of Democrats and 22% of political independents gave him good marks for his work. Among married respondents – typically a group who favors Republicans – just 35% said Bush was doing a positive job. Among men, another favorable GOP demographic, just 31% gave him positive marks, while 69% gave him a negative rating. Even among stalwart Born Again respondents, just 43% had positive ratings for the President on his overall job performance.
The survey of 982 likely voters nationwide was conducted Dec. 5–8, 2006, and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.2 percentage points.
The poll showed that Bush’s troubles clearly stem from trouble with the war in Iraq. Just 24% give him positive marks for his handling of the war, down from 39% who gave him a positive rating six months ago for his handling the way. Even among Republicans, a minority – 47% – think he has handled the war well (52% of Republicans gave him negative marks for his leadership on the war in Iraq). Not a single demographic group in the Zogby poll gave the president a majority positive rating for his handling of the war.
Asked whether the Iraq war has been worth the loss of American lives, just 34% responded positively, equally the lowest percentage recorded in a long series of Zogby polls on the question. The poll comes on the heels of the announcement that more than 2,900 Americans had been killed in the war.
Bush’s management of the overall war on terror received somewhat better marks – 40% said he is doing a positive job handling the worldwide conflict, which is almost identical to the 41% positive marks he won in a survey six months ago.
Asked whether the nation was headed in the right direction or was off on the wrong track, just one in three (32%) said things are going in the right direction, while 57% said things were amiss in the nation. Another 11% said they were unsure.
Congress Job Rating Also Hits New Low
The latest Zogby poll shows the nation is apparently ready for some new leadership on Capitol Hill. Just 16% gave the Congress positive marks for its work, while 80% gave it negative ratings. This marks an all–time low rating for Congress, as the Republicans prepare to hand the control of both houses of Congress over to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.
Among men, just 14% gave positive marks to Capitol Hill, while women were a tiny bit more generous – 20% said Congress had done a “good” or “excellent” job. Even Republicans had trouble mustering support for the GOP–led national legislature, as just 25% affixed positive ratings to Congress.
But, the survey shows, Americans hold the Capitol Hill partisans in equal disdain – both Republicans and Democrats received positive marks from just 21% of respondents, while 74% gave both Democrats and Republicans negative job performance ratings. Among Republican respondents, 38% gave the Republicans in Congress positive marks, while just 24% of Democrats gave Democrats in Congress positive marks.
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