{"id":672,"date":"2003-09-25T09:48:53","date_gmt":"2003-09-25T14:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/672.html"},"modified":"2003-09-25T09:48:53","modified_gmt":"2003-09-25T14:48:53","slug":"national-polls-show-bush-dropping-below-the-magic-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/national-polls-show-bush-dropping-below-the-magic-number\/","title":{"rendered":"National polls show Bush dropping below the magic number"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t get me wrong, when Bush’s approval ratings hit the low 50s, I was delighted. The drop has been dramatic over the last few months — ratings in the 70s in the spring, 60s through most of the early summer, and 50s as we transition into fall. <\/p>\n

But I was waiting anxiously for one thing: the drop below 50%. The day has arrived.<\/p>\n

Two national polls — count ’em, two — show Bush’s approval ratings dropping not only to the lowest point in his presidency, but dropping below the majority point. The latest NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll<\/a>, released yesterday, pegs Bush’s approval rating at 49%.<\/p>\n

The president, however, continues to hold a very small lead when poll respondents were asked how they plan to vote in the 2004 election. 42% said they’ll probably vote for Bush, while 40% said they plan to vote Democratic. This is easily the worst Bush has done on this question since NBC\/WSJ began polling on it last October, and considering the margin of error is +\/- 3%, I think it’s fair to say it’s a dead heat.<\/p>\n

American Research Group, a New Hampshire-based pollster, also released a national poll<\/a> this week, and found similar results. ARG said 47% of Americans approve of Bush’s job performance, while 48% disapprove. The percentage of Americans saying that they disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job has doubled<\/i> since May.
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\nFor those of anxious to see a new president elected next year, these are extremely encouraging poll results. At the risk of spoiling the good news, however, it’s worth noting that Bush’s drop in popularity does not mean that he’s headed for certain defeat in 2004. As the media has been reporting widely, Reagan in ’83 and Clinton in ’95 had similar approval ratings at the same point in their first term and both easily won re-election.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Bush’s support is in a free fall that probably hasn’t hit the bottom yet. The economy continues to struggle, Iraq continues to be a quagmire, our international support continues to be an embarrassment, and unemployment continues to go up. <\/p>\n

Bush’s political team, talented though they may be, has no meaningful success stories to tell and no positive achievements to tout. As long as that remains true, I suspect the president’s poll numbers will continue to fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t get me wrong, when Bush’s approval ratings hit the low 50s, I was delighted. The drop has been dramatic over the last few months — ratings in the 70s in the spring, 60s through most of the early summer, and 50s as we transition into fall. But I was waiting anxiously for one thing: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}