Bush Approval Ratings Way Down: So What for Colorado?

According to The New York Times (free registration required), President Bush's approval ratings are at one of the lowest points in his presidency (NYT/CBS News Poll):

Forty-two percent of the people responding to the poll said they approved of the way Mr. Bush was handling his job, a marked decline from his 51 percent rating after of the November election, when he embarked on an ambitious second term agenda led by the overhaul of Social Security. Sixteen months before the midterm elections, Congress fared even worse in the survey, with the approval of just 33 percent of the respondents, and 19 percent saying Congress shared their priorities.

For a recent historical perspective, President Bill Clinton had a 54 percent approval rating at this same point in his presidency, according to a Pew Research Center poll, and Clinton was in the midst of a sex scandal. The Times quotes Clinton's approval ratings as being even higher at that point:

Mr. Bush's approval rating is below the historical pattern for June in the first year of a second term: President Clinton's stood at 60 percent and President Reagan's at 59 percent. But that could reflect, in part, the much greater partisan polarization in modern politics, underscored by the 71 percentage point gap between Mr. Bush's approval rating from Democrats and Republicans in the recent poll.

What does this all mean for Colorado? Maybe nothing, but with a couple of races that will be very tight, Bush's popularity will definitely play a role. If Bush remains this unpopular next year, it will hurt Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave's re-election; it will certainly benefit the Democratic candidate in CD-7; and it might make Congressman John Salazar much tougher to beat.

In the mid-term election in 1998, Democrats picked up five seats in Congress while the Senate stayed even (in races for governor, the GOP lost one seat to an Independent candidate), and that was 16 months after Democrats had a popular President and 14 months after polls showed that 66% of people felt their congressional representative deserved re-election.

Obviously -- obviously -- a lot can change in 16 months, but if you were going to take today as any indication, things look a lot better in Colorado for Democratic candidates.

Comments

[pj]

All of this NYT chatter is strikingly reminiscent of the conversations that were occuring in 2001. Jeffords switched parties, Democrats wrested control of the Senate, Bush's approval #'s were in the mid-40's, and Karl Rove's dream of a durable Republican majority in the Congress seemed a farse. The elections of 2002 and 2004 would be a disaster for the GOP faithful. And yet, here we are, basking in 4-more-years in the Casa Blanca, and a Republican super majority in the U.S. House and Senate. Funny how the same pundits can be so wrong so often.

[marshall]

And then a concentration strategy of division was implemented by Rove which included that a War Time president has never been defeated.

Pundits can be wrong but history will not.

Bush legacy is that he took a golden moment to unite Americans and INSTEAD divided us.

Have you also looked at the approval rating for that Republican super majority in the U.S. House and Senate? - 19 percent

I wouldn't trust Republicans to take care of my plants.

[Phoenix Rising]

I think the two major differences between now and the same time in 2001 are (a) the media and even Congress is starting to abandon the Bush loyalty oath on multiple subjects, and (b) last time Bush was saved by 9/11.

Congress is trying to drop Social Security reform, push for a "timetable" on Iraq, is holding hearings on Gitmo, and is pushing for energy reform. The media is getting multiple follow-up questions to McClellan on the "final throes" of the Iraqi insurgency and is pursuing many financial scandals that predominanty feature Republicans.

It's a long way from where we are to a Congressional race dominated by how far away from the leadership your local Representative happens to be, but with the bad poll numbers and increasing volume, the dead governors are on the right story.

[GOP]

OFF TO THE RACES
Bush's Cloud Has Silver Lining

By Charlie Cook, NationalJournal.com
Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Think about all the problems for Republicans and the White House to worry about: Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the economy, with concerns about jobs clearly trumping strong economic growth numbers; as American casualties in Iraq are mounting, public opinion surveys show patience for the war wearing thin; President Bush's Social Security proposal is, it seems, dead, and his political capital is suffering from far more withdrawals than deposits; more and more legislative proposals are getting to be heavy lifts for the Bush administration, with the pending Central America Free Trade Agreement among the toughest.

Lastly, there is the developing Jack Abramoff/House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, situation, which has Republicans increasingly worried about the chance of a high-profile trial next year, just in time for the midterm elections. Combine all of that with the historical pattern for presidential party losses in midterm elections -- particularly bad in the second term -- and this looks troubling for the GOP.

But one dynamic complicates this picture. Let us say, hypothetically, that the United States was pretty evenly divided between the two major political parties and that a president had only reached a job approval rating of 20 percent among members of the opposite party in just three out of 37 Gallup polls conducted over the last year, the highest being 24 percent, the lowest 11 percent. The inescapable conclusion would be that, short of a war or another tragedy of 9/11 proportions, that president would never have a particularly good job approval rating.

Now let us say that among members of his own party, that same president never dropped below 85 percent approval, and that in 21 out of the 37 Gallup polls, his approval rating was in the 90s, peaking at 96 percent. In that case, he would have a very high floor, and unless his fellow party members began to abandon him, there is no way he could hit the historic low job approval ratings that Presidents Richard Nixon (24 percent), Gerald Ford (37 percent), Jimmy Carter (28 percent), Ronald Reagan (40 percent), George H. W. Bush (29 percent) and Bill Clinton (37 percent) received when they were in their worst shape.

This is exactly the situation that Bush finds himself in now. Of the 76 relevant national polls listed on realclearpolitics.com since the start of the year, all but eight have his approval ratings between 44 percent and 52 percent. In 44 of those surveys, his rating is less than 50 percent. Welcome to polarized America!

Sure, the polls look bad for Bush, but that high floor, supported by steadfast support levels among his own party members, prevents his numbers from getting down into that basket case level that each of his predecessors reached. As long as he enjoys the support of that 85 percent or so of Republicans, his numbers almost can't drop down to that 24-37 percent range visited by Nixon, Ford, Carter, Clinton and his father.

Another thing working in Bush's favor here is that the lack of competitive Republican-held House districts and states with Republican Senate seats up in 2006 make it very unlikely that the GOP will lose control of either chamber next year.

The safety net is, in some ways, simply a byproduct of our polarized situation. But to give credit where it is due, it is also the result of that much-maligned base strategy that Karl Rove designed for Bush. This strategy made sure that no matter what, the base stays with the president, so don't undercut yourself within your core of support by overly obsessing about moderate and independent swing voters.

It is also important to remember that the electoral divisions we see today pretty much reflect where the country is politically, and that is pretty evenly divided, with Republicans a bit ahead. The House is split 231 Republicans to 203 Democrats; the Senate has 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats. State legislatures are split right down the middle.

It is far too early to make any judgments about who will vote and who will stay home in next year's elections.

To be sure, there is a danger in taking this strategy too far and totally ignoring swing voters. But keep in mind, swing voters are much more likely to stay home in midterm elections than those voters who are a part of the party base. They tend to be less motivated, less committed to be a part of the process. They are hit-and-run voters, showing up at times, staying home at others, and are very fickle in their political behavior on so many levels.

Yes, there is a clear historical pattern for second-term, midterm election losses. The party whose president was in power lost dozens of House seats in 1958, 1966 and 1974, for example. But, having said that, the intensely polarized electorate adds a new and very different dynamic. Combined with the low number of competitive races, it is virtually impossible for such huge losses to happen this time.

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Charlie Cook's "Off To The Races" is published each Tuesday by National Journal Group Inc. For more information about National Journal Group's publications, go to http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/

[ohwilleke]

Indepenents decide elections and they are turning against the administration.

Equally important, there are GOP groups that are not happy with the President. In his first term, the President won almost every vote.

This time around, he's lost the stem cell and Patriot Act library search votes in the Republican held House in the last month or so. Social Security, his number one priority, is DOA in the Republican controlled House. Sen. Voinivich jumped ship on the Bolton nomination, and several other Republican Senators visible held their noses on that nomination. Frist wanted an end to the filibuster and didn't get it due to intraparty division. A lot of conservative pundits are appalled by high deficits and the Terri Schiavo case. Two Republicans joined a resolution to demand a time frame for withdrawing from Iraq this week. A married Pennsylvania family values GOP Congressman being sued for beating up his mistress of five years isn't going to help either. Rumsfield has admitted that he's tried to resign more than once. Republican Senator Allard was attacking the administration for its handling of the Air Force Academy case. Oil prices went up to $58 a barrel today, and the American people don't feel safer because of Iraq.

Moreover, even if Bush does recover, who cares? He's a lame duck. The real question is whether Congress can. It has 33% approval ratings and a throw the bumbs out mood in 2006 could have a big effect.