The latest ABC News-Washington Post poll, shows the President’s approval rating at an all-time low, and a majority of Americans questioning his integrity.
For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.
On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office — the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.
(….)
The dissatisfaction with Bush flows in part out of broad concerns about the overall direction of the country. Nearly 7 in 10 — 68 percent — believe the country is seriously off course, while only 30 percent are optimistic, the lowest level in more than nine years. Only 3 in 10 express high levels of confidence in Bush, while half say they have little or no confidence in this administration.
Just 35 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as either excellent or good, with 65 percent describing it as not so good or poor. Although the government reported last week that gross domestic product rose 3.8 percent in the last quarter, despite the effects of Hurricane Katrina, 29 percent of those surveyed said they regard the economy as poor, the highest recorded during Bush’s presidency.
Bad news for the President, if the results are true. But are they ? Brent Baker at Newsbusters pointed out problems with a similar poll released earlier this week by CBS News; specifically that the sample used underrepresented the overall percentage of self-identified Republicans. From this report of the sample used, it appears that the Post may have done the same thing. I’ll leave it to satisticians to determine if there’s a problem here.
