President Bush's Approval Rating Falls Below 40%

According to an AP/Ipsos poll released today, the President's approval rating has fallen below 40% to 39% with a whopping 59% of Americans saying they disapprove of how Bush is handling his job:

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?

Strongly Approve 20 (23)
Somewhat Approve 11 (10)
Lean Toward Approval 8 (9)
Lean Toward Disapproval 14 (13)
Somewhat Disapprove 5 (5)
Strongly Disapprove 40 (38)

Total

Approve 39 (42)
Disapprove 59 (55)

Notice the huge and growing gap between those who strongly approve (20%) and those who strongly disapprove (40%).

The AP/Ipsos poll has a lot of information in it and I strongly recommend that readers download the pdf and look at all the questions asked. Here are some other questions and poll results that I found interesting:

Handling the situation in Iraq:

Strongly Approve 22 (22)
Somewhat Approve 8 (8)
Lean Toward Approval 7 (8)
Lean Toward Disapproval 8 (10)
Somewhat Disapprove 8 (8)
Strongly Disapprove 46 (41)

Total

Approve 37 (38)
Disapprove 62 (59)

Amazing, over 60% of Americans now disapprove of how President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq.

On Hurricane Katrina:

69% Agree with the statement that the federal government should have been better prepared to cope with the effects of a disaster of the magnitude caused by Hurricane Katrina

vs. only

30% Agree with the statement that the federal government was as prepared as it could have been to cope with a disaster of the magnitude casused by Hurricane Katrina.

This is the problem that President Bush and Republicans are going to have a tough time overcoming: In the post 9/11 world the American public expects the federal government to to be prepared for large-scale disasters regardless of their cause. It is impossible to claim that the federal government was prepared for this.

Furthermore, it is clear that even a large percentage of those who approve of how Bush has handled the post-disaster relief efforts and his overall response, even they agree that the federal government should have been prepared to deal with a situation such as this and it was not.

President Bush has a very tough road ahead.