Via Memeorandum, this piece of bad news for the GOP:
Six months before Republicans try to hold on to control of Congress in the fall elections, a new poll shows President Bush has slid to the lowest approval rating of his presidency, and a majority of voters say they’ll vote for Democrats in November.
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday found Bush’s approval rating at 34%, two points under his previous low. He also received the lowest ratings of his presidency on his handling of the economy, energy and foreign affairs. He tied his previous low on Iraq: 32%.
The poll showed Democrats leading 54%-39% among registered voters who were asked which party they would prefer in a congressional race.
Insert the usual caveats about registered voters v. likely voters, but this is still a pretty big hurdle for the GOP.
Slide
How low can he go. He long ago had lost just about every Democrat and most independents… and now his drop is coming from Republicans that are deserting the Great Decider. Dubai port deal and immigration stand hasn’t helped him secure his base. High gas prices the icing on the cake. Prediction: Bush will be in the 20’s approval around Memorial Day.
ppGaz
Just the other day, the president said that he won’t govern by looking at polls. We are lucky to have a leader who sticks to his principles even when the going gets rough.
VidaLoca
John,
While I’m pleased to read this kind of polling data, and even more pleased to see the way it’s trending over time, here’s why I’m not counting my chickens.
If you or anyone else has numbers to counter this, I’d really like to see them.
Slide
The article that VidaLoca linked to says this,
.What would stop the tailspin. There are so many things cooking on the pot right now and all of them bad for the Republicans:
Iraq war… will it get better over the next six months?
Abramhoff scandal is JUST starting
Prostitution scandal?
Do Nothing congress will do even less over next 6 months.
Karl Rove gets indicted?
Senator Specter holding hearings on wiretapping
immigration debate is not helping GOP
corruption and scandal everywhere you look, from Homeland Security to CPA in Iraq to FDA etc. etc.
None of this going to get better over the next six months, as a matter of fact, as the rats desert the sinking ship, more and more will come out…like Powell saying over the weekend that he argued for more troops…. everyone is going to start to distance themselves from the WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY.. it ain’t going to be pretty.
So, to answer the article, yeah I see nothing that will change the current trend, nothing that will turn things around for the GOP. Perhaps they think that beating the war drums for Iran might do the trick but that would be a huge miscalculation on their part. Been there, done that.
SeesThroughIt
And then there’s this: Bush Turned Down Chances To Kill Zarqawi The War on Terruh must continue unabated!
Slide
and of course there is bush hypocisy like this:
From Kevin Phillips’ American Dynasty:
DougJ
Once the war on Christmas starts heating up, whatever advantage the Dems have in these polls will be erased. A vote for Nancy Pelosi is a vote against Santa Claus. There are some on the left who say Christmas should be abolished — this president disagrees. John Kerry plays with dradels while he’s windsurfing. Howard Dean tried unsuccessfully to outlaw Christas trees for environmental reasons while he was governor of Vermont. Felice Navidad should only be sung in English.
Slide
unfortunately for the GOP, the elections are the first week in November, a little before us liberals start our War on Christmas Campaign.
DougJ
Slide, that was before 911. 911 changed everything. Until you liberals get out of your pre-911 mindset and realize that irony is dead, that oceans cannot protect us, and that the national anthem can no longer be sung in Spanish, you won’t get anywhere with the voters. That last sentence was a direct quote from an upcoming Joe Klein column that was leaked to me by the good people at Raw Story.
Slide
Question: does anyone have film footage of the Great Decider singing the National Anthem in Spanish? That would be so sweete.
VidaLoca
Slide, just as a thought — why not bring that question up over at Crooks & Liars? You’d think that if they didn’t have it they’d know someone who might…
LITBMueller
Nothing DIEBOLD can’t handle! Remember, those suckers are programmable!!! A keystroke, a flick of the swicth…and Katherine Harris gets to show off her boobies in D.C.!!!
Punchy
There’s quite a big diff between who the voters will vote for and what Diebold will actually tabulate.
Anyone else stunned at how unresponsive the GOP is to their voters? As if they know they’ll be re-elected no matter what? As if they’ve been assured of an electoral victory 6 months in advance?
Until we go back to paper and punchcards, few election victories are possible.
Slide
well..if you follows some of the links above you get this:
Really? Well, that is at odds with this from his own paper now isn’t it?
.
Marx Marvelous
Insert the usual caveats about registered voters v. likely voters, but this is still a pretty big hurdle for the GOP.
I don’t think it’s a hurdle at all. The American people are always willing to come around and support a politician when they do some good. I mean, look at the President’s approval rating after 9/11: in the 90s. You gotta figure that includes some pretty hardcore Democrats and liberals approving of him. They saw what a great job he did following a national tragedy and were willing to support him.
The GOP has some hurdles to overcome, but low approval rating isn’t one of them. The real hurdle is that they’re corrupt, their ideas are unpopular with the American public, and they’ve done little to improve the government while being in control of it.
Zifnab
I think we’re going to have alot of Republican voters staying home come ’06, but if Democrats can keep up record turn-outs that’ll still mean a big win.
That said, Republicans still have six months to try and sell another Big Lie(tm) to the American people if they can whip it up in time. They beat gays into the dust, the immigration thing looks to be falling on its face, so I bet this year its going to be all about how Democrats want to have manditory abortions if Good Christians don’t act fast.
Or they could just steal the election with Diebold voting machines. You know. Whatever works.
SeesThroughIt
Genius
Punchy
What’s so f’ing scary about that snark is that if Faux News pimped it, Frist brings in up in an interview (and then isn’t challenged on it’s veracity), and then Hannity and O’Lielly repeat it daily, that apparently 33% of Americans would actually believe it.
tzs
Yeah, but never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from victory. It’s about the only thing we’re good at.
(How many elections do Shrum et al. have to lose before the DNC decide that maybe, just maybe, this doesn’t work?)
Sheesh. I wonder if the DNC is trying to get its way into the history books by being the longest-running-party-out-of-power? They’re starting to look like Japanese opposition parties, but without the efficiency.
Bruce Moomaw
I’m not entirely sure that the standard pattern of actual voters being a couple percent more Republican than registered voters will hold this time — Gallup a few days ago reported far more enthusiasm for the 2006 elections among Democrats than among Republicans. (Of course, the Democrats, with monotonous regularity, end up doing several percent worse in the actual Congressional election than they did in the polls at this point — but there’s always a first time.)
Considerably more bizarre is Gallup’s poll today on the extent to which Republicans have split off from independent voters. It seems that 81% of Republicans still give Bush a positive rating — but only 22% of Independents do! It starts to look as though Bush’s remaining supporters consist entirely of Christian Fundies — who, as Andrew Sullivan says, will NEVER abandon him, because it’s their religious duty to stick by him forever — and wealthy businessmen, who will never abandon him for quite different reasons. The limitations of Rove’s “motivate the base” strategy have never been clearer. (But then, I’ve never regarded Rove as an “evil genius”. Evil, yes. Genius, no. He came within a hair of personally blowing the 2000 race — and if it hadn’t been for that helping hand from Osama, the GOP would have been picking itself up with a spoon as early as 2002.)
Bruce Moomaw
Speak of the Devil. Charlie Cook’s latest political report (courtesy of Mark Kleiman) says:
“Studies show that voters in Bush-friendly red states drive significantly more miles each month than those in blue states, and it’s a pretty logical assumption that gasoline usage is much greater in the predominately suburban, rural and small town congressional districts most often represented by Republicans, than in more compact, urban districts usually held by Democrats. That means the longer gasoline prices remain high, the worse it will be for GOP candidates.
“It is clear that these issues have taken a toll. RT Strategies, headed by Thom Riehle, a veteran Democratic pollster, and Lance Tarrance, one of the pioneering pollsters on the Republican side, found that when respondents were asked which party they would like to see in control of Congress after these elections, Democrats had an advantage of 11 points among all adults, 48-37 percent, 12 points among registered voters, 49-37 percent, and 17 points among the most likely voters, 53-36 percent.
“In the other variation of what has come to be known as the generic congressional ballot test, when people were asked whether they planned on voting for the Democratic candidate for Congress or the Republican, Democrats led by 12 points among adults, 44-32 percent; by 13 points among registered voters, 45-32 percent; and by a whopping 18 points among those most likely to vote, 50-32 percent.”
It would be an entirely typical political irony if the issue that ends up finally scalping Bush is one of the few major national problems he’s not to blame for.
Kirk Spencer
re the strange split between Republicans and Independents… I’ve suspected for a while that it’s not really there. Remember that these are self-identified positions. What I think is happening is that Republicans drift from “I’m GOP all the way” to “I’m GOP, but I’m not so fond of all the GOP positions” to “I used to be GOP, but I’m independent because I can’t stand to call myself a Dem.” I suspect in other years the same has applied to Democats, it’s just that this time it’s the Right’s experience.
Put it this way. John Cole, are you a Republican or an Independent when the phone surveyors call?
The Other Steve
VidaLoca,
For those who didn’t follow the link. The premise is that on average while people want Congress changed, they say their own representative should be re-elected. The argument being that politics is all local.
It’s a fair point, and true to a large percent.
Now I can’t find it, but Carville or someone pointed out one small chink in that armor. While the overall average is that people think their current Rep should be reelected, when you get down to district by district… the Democrats have a much larger spread than the Republicans. That is, to paraphrase without real numbers…, on average Democrats are at around a 65% reelect, and Republicans are around a 52% reelect. That averages out to say 59%, but it still places Republicans in a precarious position if things don’t turn around.
If I can, I’ll try to find those details. But this argument of local politics still has a lot of spin attached to it by Mehlman, etc.
ppGaz
Bruce, check my url and the first text you see there, and send me an email. I have a question for you.
Caroline
Yes, he largely has the fundamentalists and the hillbiliies. The fundamentalists will never abandon him because they think he is Jesus who saved them from the anti-christ named Bill Clinton. The hillbillies love him because he is killing large numbers of dark skinned people in Iraq (doesn’t matter to them whether they are actually terrorist or anything). IMO, the only wealthy business people who still support him are those that are currently on the crony/kickback list i.e. oil execs, halliburton execs etc.