Job Approval at Midterm

Legacy blog posts President Bush

Earlier in the week, MP posted links to the latest surveys by USAToday/Gallup and CBS News and anticipated an updated trend chart that our friend Charles Franklin delivered as expected later that day.   Unfortunately, a challenging week of travel and day-job distractions prevented me from checking Franklin’s site until today – the updated chart appears at the end of this post.  However, I also discovered an amazing analysis that Franklin did earlier in the week comparing the current Bush job rating to the mid-term ratings of other Presidents since 1950.   His conclusion is a bit stunning, even for those of us who obsess over such things: “We have simply never seen a president this unpopular going into a midterm election.”

As usual, one of Franklin’s pictures is worth a thousand words.  Here is the money graphic following by his description:

President Bush’s approval rating is on course to set a record low for mid-term elections.  The magnitude of the problem is greater than commonly perceived. The previous record low approval in the last Gallup poll of October was 41% for President Truman in 1950. Based on approval trends in 2005-06, the President and Congressional Republicans are facing an election day 2006 approval of between 20.4% and 40.8%.

He goes on to explain how he used past trends in the Bush job approval rating to try to project a range of potential ratings conceivable by October, illustrated as the line at the bottom of the chart (above) that extends in both directions from the “GW Bush 2006” point.   But whatever guess one wants to make about what the Bush rating will look like in October, it is hard to argue with his conclusion: 

I was frankly shocked at the above results. Other presidents have suffered low approval ratings, and President Bush still stands above the lows of four of the ten other post-war presidents. But I had not appreciated how much the current approval is below other mid-term approval ratings, even without extrapolating current trends. We have simply never seen a president this unpopular going into a midterm election.

Well, actually, as a commenter on Franklin’s site points out, he started with 1950 and thus missed the low of Harry Truman — 33% in September 1946.  That is not company George Bush wants to share.  In 1946, Republicans won 55% of the congressional vote and took control of both houses of Congress and a majority of state governorships. 

Meanwhile two new polls have been released since my last post earlier this week:  The R-T Strategies poll puts the Bush job approval rating at 36% (results, crosstabulations, presentation) and a new AP-IPSOS survey out today reports it at 33% (AP story, results).   Franklin promises an updated trend chart later today, but meanwhile, here is his version from earlier this week:

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.