Two major national polls were released today and both of them are nothing but bad news for the Bush White House.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll shows Kerry leading Bush by a sizable 8-point margin, 52%-44% among likely voters. Looking at some of the finer details, there’s plenty more good news in the results.
* Kerry leads Bush among women voters (53%-43%), which is expected, but also leads among men (47%-46%), which is unusual.
* Bush’s overall approval rating is 49%, equal to his all-time low in USA Today/CNN/Gallup polls.
* By a better than two-to-one margin (66%-30%), people said it is “inappropriate” for candidate to use 9/11 images in campaign ads, as Bush is.
* When asked which candidate they’d trust to handle policy issues, poll respondents backed Kerry on nearly every domestic issue. Kerry led Bush in handling the economy (50%-42%), education (47%-43%), the budget deficit (53%-37%), health care (55%-36%), Social Security (51%-36%), and protecting citizens’ privacy (49%-40%). Bush led Kerry in handling gay marriage (46%-41%), Iraq (54%-39%), terrorism (60%-33%), and foreign affairs in general (50%-42%).
A Washington Post/ABC poll showed similarly encouraging results. In fact, these poll numbers closely mirrored the USA Today surbey. In a head-to-head match-up, Kerry leads Bush by nine points, 53%-42%. In addition,
* 57 percent say they want the next president to steer the country away from the course set by Bush.
* Bush’s overall approval rating is 50%, equal to his all-time low in Post/ABC polls, while the proportions of Americans who disapprove (48%) and strongly disapprove (36%) have never been higher.
* Of a dozen policy areas, Kerry leads Bush in eight. Kerry’s lead on policy issues is surprisingly large, with double-digit advantages over Bush as the person best able to handle the economy (12% lead over Bush), Social Security (16% lead), education (12% lead), the budget deficit (15% lead), and health care (20% lead).
And panic starts to set in with the GOP establishment…