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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Dr. McAdams, am I selecting congenial polls now? Three Polls Show Bush Approval Below 40%

About a month ago Dr. McAdams of the Warrior Blog tossed out my entry regarding the significance of Bush's approval rating because he believed the AP/Isos poll, which had President Bush's approval rating at 39%, because it was an outlier.

It is true that the AP/Isos poll at that time was the only poll that was showing President Bush's approval rating below 40%, but rather than disregard it, I believed that the AP/Isos poll was more of an indicator of things to come for the President and for the Republican Party.

At the end of my entry I stated that "President Bush has a very tough road ahead" and as it turns out that road has gotten considerably tougher: Tom Delay has been indicted, the right-wing of the party is in fuming over the Miers nomination, Bill Frist has come under investigation, and the CIA-leak probe is widening its scope.

These events are clearly reflected in the poll numbers released in the last few days:

10/12/05: NBC-WSJ Poll:

Approve: 39% Disapprove: 48%
Right Track: 28%
Prefer Republican Controlled Congress: 39%
Prefer Democratic Controlled Congress: 48%


According to the MSNBC article the "nine-point difference is the largest margin between the parties in the 11 years the NBC/Journal poll has been tracking this question."

AP/ISOS 10/7

Approve: 39% Disapprove: 58%
Right Track: 28%
CBS News Poll

Approve: 37% Disapprove: 58%
Right Track: 26%
Favorable View Toward Democrats: 43% Favorable View Toward Republicans: 37% (In Congress)


Rasmussen:

Approve: 43% (21% Strongly Approve) disprove: 55% (40% Strongly Disapprove)


While the Rasmussen poll still has Bush above 40% it clearly shows that the tide has turned against Bush when you look at the "strongly approve" and "strongly disapprove".

As I said last time, the road is only going to get tougher for President Bush and the Republican Party as the problems with Delay and Frist are not likely to go away anytime soon and I highly doubt that Miers confirmation hearings will do much to bring the religious right back into the fold. Furthermore, as winter approaches Americans are going to begin to get a sense of how much their heating bills are going to rise, which like the price of gasoline will add more fuel to the fire.