Slip Sliding Away: Bush Approval 31% (Updated) genre: Polispeak

UPDATE:

The New York Times has an article today that indicates the administration has decided that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will provide votes during the midterm elections in November. In the original part of this posting, I highlighted the following statement:

I see the disparity between conservatives and Republicans as the most telling number. Conservatives are beginning to see this as a failing presidency. I'm inclined to think that the conservative approval numbers better predict the thinking of the Party establishment.

In the article today, we have the following:

SUN CITY CENTER, Fla., May 9 — A few months ago, President Bush's prescription drug plan seemed to be another White House initiative going wrong. The people it was intended to help complained that the plan was too complicated. Conservatives complained that it was a giant giveaway.

This week, Mr. Bush is storming through this state, rich with older residents, as the main salesman for a plan that aides say is now emerging as a surprise plus for Republicans in a rocky election season.

The fact that the President is in Florida touting the program signals the administrations shifting calculations for the upcoming midterm elections. However, even within the Republican Party, there is disagreement on both the plan and the strategy. See the following:

Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, an economically conservative group, said that whatever gains the program might give to Republicans from older voters would be negated, at best, by losses among the conservatives who make up the core Republican vote in nonpresidential elections.

"I'm very skeptical that this will be a net positive," Mr. Toomey said. "I think to hold onto the majorities, Republicans have to do something to demonstrate a renewed commitment to limited government, and touting the prescription drug plan is not going to do that."

These remarks reinforce my contention that the larger problem for the President and the Republican Party is the divide that is demonstrated in the poll numbers. Specifically, support from voters who describe themselves as conservatives (52%) is some 16% lower than the support from those voters who identify themselves as Republicans (68%). If this trend continues through November, it signals a split in the voting block that carried the Republican Party to victory in 2000 and 2004. What impact this may have is uncertain but it will likely mean that, as a whole, the Republican voting block will be less enthused and therefore less likely to turn out to vote.
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ORIGINAL POSTING:

President Bush continues his streak of record lows in approval polling with his 31% favorable rating in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll. Read the full article here.

Bush's fall is being fueled by erosion among support from conservatives and Republicans. In the poll, 52% of conservatives and 68% of Republicans approved of the job he is doing. Both are record lows among those groups.

Moderates gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals of 7%.

I see the disparity between conservatives and Republicans as the most telling number. Conservatives are beginning to see this as a failing presidency. I'm inclined to think that the conservative approval numbers better predict the thinking of the Party establishment. Those Republicans up for reelection must find themselves in a very difficult position as they attempt to craft campaign messages.

Only four presidents have scored lower approval ratings since the Gallup Poll began regularly measuring it in the mid-1940s: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and the first George Bush. When Nixon, Carter and the elder Bush sank below 35%, they never again registered above 40%.

Daniel DiRito | May 10, 2006 | 8:46 AM
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