The latest Harris poll has Bush at 35%. More on the poll:
Thirty-five percent of 1,008 U.S. adults surveyed in the telephone poll think Mr. Bush is doing an "excellent or pretty good" job as president, down from 36% in March and significantly lower than 43% in January. This compares with 63% of Americans who said Mr. Bush is doing an "only fair or poor" job, down from 64% in March.
Furthermore, pessimism about the direction of U.S. policies appears to be growing. Only 27% of Americans believe "things in this country are going in the right direction," a drop from 31% in March, according to the poll.
Bad news from Iraq appears to weigh on the general public, as 23% of Americans said they consider Iraq to be one of the top two most important issues the government should address. The ongoing immigration debate also prompted 19% of Americans to consider it a top issue, a sharp gain from just 4% a month ago, followed by health care (13%), the economy (12%) and education (10%).
Immigration rising as an issue can't be good news for the GOP, since it's a no-win for them. And one wonders whether Republicans will begin to see the wisdom in Carl Bernstein's proposal that they get out ahead of Bush's fall, by really investigating his presidency and throwing him over the side in the name of self-preservation.
By the way Bush's lowest showing in the Harris poll was a 34% approval rating last November, paired with a 65% disapproval.
And another interesting result: if the Congressional elections were held today, 37% of respondents said they would support the Republican candidate, versus 41 percent who would support the Democrat. That's actually a narrowing of the gap for the GOP since January. Another 15 percent would support an "other" candidate and 6% who are undecided.
Positive views of Bush's performance were 71-29 favorable among Republicans, 8-89 unfavorable among Democrats, and a pretty staggering 27-72 negative among independents.
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Tags: Bush, Politics, Iraq, News, Republicans, Polls, Harris poll, Congress |
