Strong disapproval: You hate him, you really hate him
We hear a lot about Bush’s approval rating — and we should, because it is extremely low for a second term president by historical standards. What we don’t hear much about is the intensity of the opposition to Bush and how it has grown since 2004. Most polls simply ask pollees if they approve or disapprove of the president. However, Washington Post/ABC runs a regular poll where they ask if the pollee “approves somewhat”, “approves strongly”, “disapproves somewhat”, or “disapproves strongly.” Check out what the figures show at this chart here (in html, bless their hearts). When one takes the first five polls done after the 2004 election, one finds an average “strong approval” rating of 31 percent for Bush, with an average “strong disapproval” rating of 35.8. Over the most recent five, he has an average “strong approval” rating of 19.8 and a “strong disapproval rating” of 48.
When you break it down, it’s not just that his approval rating has gone down about 14 points (according to this set of polls), it’s that the shift is almost entirely from “strong approval” to “strong disapproval.”
It’s really striking. Check out this handy picture:
No comments yet.