There’s some good news in the latest Annenberg Election Survey for President Bush. His overall approval rating in the poll, conducted June 8-21, is at the stratospheric level (for him these days) of 52 percent. (Note, however, that the latest Washington Post poll, conducted at the very end of the Annenberg period, June 17-20, pegged his approval rating at 47 percent, the Post poll’s worst rating ever for him.)
The poll also found Bush’s approval rating in specific areas like the economy and Iraq slightly improved over their late May levels, though still solidly net negative. And on a series of personal characteristics like “inspiring”, “trustworthy” and “shares my values” Bush’s ratings are generally up over their May values.
The bad news for Bush is that, among “persuadable voters”–that quarter of the electorate who seems open to changing their minds about which candidate to support–he has gone nowhere. In fact, on that series of personal characteristics I just mentioned, his ratings among persuadable voters have almost all gone down, not up, since the last Annenberg survey.
Moreover, only 27 percent of persuadable voters currently think the country is headed in the right direction, identical with the May figure. Bush’s approval rating has actually slid a point–down to 44 percent–among these voters. And his approval ratings of the economy (31 percent approval/59 percent disapproval) and Iraq (26/68) are also slight declines from his already-abysmal May ratings.
And check out these figures for persuadable voters on Iraq-related issues, all more negative than they were last month. Only 34 percent of these voters feel the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, compared to 59 percent who feel it was not. Just 17 percent believe the war in Iraq has reduced the risk of terrorism against the United States, compared to 71 percent who believe it has increased that risk. And a mere 37 percent of persuadable voters want to keep the troops in Iraq until a stable government is formed, while 57 percent now say they want to bring the troops home as soon as possible.
I guess you could say the persuadable voters haven’t been persuaded.