Ports: CBS News & Cook/RT

Legacy blog posts Polls in the News President Bush

Two new polls confirm the Rasmussen result discussed yesterday that shows Americans overwhelmingly oppose the deal to allow an Arab company to operate U.S. shipping ports.  The new surveys from CBS News (story, Bush results, Katrina results) and the Cook Political Report and RT Strategies (Charlie Cook column, results) also show significant drops in the approval rating of President George Bush since January.

The CBS and RT Strategies polls explain the ports issue in more detail, yet still show more than 60% of Americans now oppose to the deal: 

CBS News – As you may know, the Bush Administration has agreed to let a company from the United Arab Emirates run six shipping ports in the U.S., including ports in New York and New Orleans, that are now being run by a British company. Critics of the plan say that allowing a company from an Arab country to operate U.S. shipping ports is dangerous to national security. The Bush Administration says security will be protected by the U.S. and that the United Arab Emirates is a U.S. ally.  Do you think the U.S. should or should not let a United Arab Emirates company operate U.S. shipping ports?

21% Should

70% Should not

9% Don’t know

RT Strategies – Here is something that has been in the news recently.  An Arab-government owned company has been cleared by the U.S. government to run major shipping operations at six major seaports here in the United States.  Some believe that this proposal could lead to a potential security threat at these U.S. ports, while President Bush disagrees.  Bush says the government has carefully made this decision and there is no security threat.  Do you think (ROTATE:) Congress should take special action to block the government’s decision, or we should trust President Bush and his Administration in their decision?

27% Trust Bush

61% Block action

12% Not sure

Rasmussen Reports – Should Dubai Ports World Be Allowed to Buy Port Operating Rights?

17% Yes

64% No

19% Not sure

Both CBS and RT Strategies provide tabulations of these results by party ID, which suggest that the different question language used by the two pollsters matters mostly to Republicans.  On the CBS survey, 58% of Republicans say the U.S. “should not let a United Arab Emirates company operate U.S. shipping ports,” while RT Strategies shows only 32% of Republicans believe “Congress should take special action to block the government’s decision.”  The difference is mostly likely the different language used in the alternative posed by the RT Strategies:  “or we should trust President Bush and his Administration in their decision?” 

All three survey organizations now show President Bush with a statistically significant decline in his job approval rating since their last survey:

  • CBS News shows an eight point decline Bush’s approval rating, from 42% in late January to 34% on the most recent survey.
  • RT Strategies shows a seven point decline, from 47% approval in late January to 40% now.
  • Rasmussen’s average result has declined from 47% earlier in February to 44% over the last six days. 

Tabulations of the Bush rating by party identification show that the declines cut across all partisan groups in both surveys:

Some will no doubt seize on the fact that the latest CBS News sample is a few points more Democratic on party ID (37%) than on their last three surveys (34% in late January, 33% in early January and 32% in December), although the Republican percentage (28%) is about the same as the last three surveys (27%, 29% and 28% respectively).  However, the difference in the party results does not explain the drop in the Bush job rating, which occurs across all three categories.

In fact, even when MP recalculates the CBS job approval results for the most recent survey using the average party composition reported on their last three surveys (33% Democrat, 28% Republican, 39% independent or other), the Bush approval percentage still rounds to 34%.   The reason is that my recalculation just increases the number of independents at the expense of Democrats.  However, Bush’s rating is now so low among both subgroups as measured by CBS that the adjustment makes little difference.

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.