{"id":4859,"date":"2005-08-01T09:19:04","date_gmt":"2005-08-01T13:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2005-08-01T09:19:04","modified_gmt":"2005-08-01T13:19:04","slug":"not-exactly-mr-popularity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/not-exactly-mr-popularity\/","title":{"rendered":"Not exactly Mr. Popularity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a post recently about Bush’s falling poll numbers, which led a couple of commenters to express<\/a> some frustration. One regular noted<\/a>, “I’ve been hearing down, down, down for weeks, but somehow the numbers don’t seem to change that much, and he never seems to reach his lowest levels, at least in most polls.” <\/p>\n

It’s a fair point. There’s talk of Bush hitting the rock-bottom of his national support, and then we see some poll pegging his approval rating at 47%, which is low, but not shockingly so.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, I’m pleased to report that Bush’s support really is plunging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new Gallup Poll finds a drop in George W. Bush’s job approval rating, which currently stands at 44% after being at 49% in two earlier polls this month. The current rating is the lowest of the Bush presidency. Bush’s favorable rating has also hit a new low, as just 48% of Americans rate him favorably, which is the first time that percentage has dropped below 50%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gallup also showed Bush’s support among self-identified independents dropping to 36%, also an all-time low for his presidency.<\/p>\n

The confusion over competing poll numbers comes, of course, from variety. With this in mind, let’s consider some context.<\/p>\n

* Gallup<\/a> has Bush’s approval rating at 44%<\/b>, the lowest of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

* Associated Press\/Ipsos<\/a> has Bush’s approval rating at 42%<\/b>, the lowest of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

* Quinnipiac<\/a> has Bush’s approval rating at 41%<\/b>, the lowest of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

* American Research Group<\/a> has Bush’s approval rating at 42%<\/b>, the lowest of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

* Pew Research Center<\/a> has Bush’s approval rating at 44%<\/b>, near the lowest of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

When one pollster shows Bush in the low 40s, it’s easier to suggest it’s an outlier. When everyone says it, we’re talking about a trend. The average of these five national polls is 42.6%. <\/p>\n

The bottom line is, we’re dealing with an unpopular president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a post recently about Bush’s falling poll numbers, which led a couple of commenters to express some frustration. One regular noted, “I’ve been hearing down, down, down for weeks, but somehow the numbers don’t seem to change that much, and he never seems to reach his lowest levels, at least in most polls.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}