Gallup released their latest poll today and it contains mostly bad news for the president. And the poll, which was conducted June 3-6, and therefore partly overlaps with the period after Reagan’s death, certainly shows little evidence of a “Reagan death bounce” for Bush (though it remains possible that later polls will turn up evidence of such a bounce).
Turning first to the horse race numbers, Kerry leads Bush by 5 points among RVs (49-44), up from a 2 point lead in their May 21-23 poll. It’s also interesting to note that, for the second straight poll, Gallup’s LV numbers (a 6 point, 50-44 lead for Kerry) closely match their RV numbers.
Gallup helpfully provides a solid red/purple/solid blue breakdown of the Kerry-Bush RV matchup. That breakdown shows Kerry with a very healthy lead in the solid blue states (57-37( and Bush with a surprisingly modest one in the solidly red states (48-44). And, most critical to Kerry’s electoral chances, he replicates his national lead of 5 points in the purple states (49-44).
The poll shows Bush with a modest uptick in his overall approval rating (up 2 points in the last two weeks to 49 percent, with disapproval remaining steady at 49 percent). But his approval rating on the economy, despite the recent pretty good job numbers, has not budged since early May and remains mired at 41 percent. In fact, this latest poll shows his disapproval rating on the economy actually going up slightly (by 2 points, to 58 percent) in the last two weeks.
Bush’s approval rating on handling terrorism remains his relative strong point at 56 percent–but even that, of course, is way down from the gaudy ratings of 65 percent and above he consistently received until this spring. And his rating on Iraq is essentially unchanged from a month ago at a very poor 41 percent approval/57 percent disapproval. His rating on handling foreign affairs is only slightly better at 44/54.
But his worst ratings are in two domestic areas of potentially large significance to November’s outcome: energy policy and prescription drugs for seniors. In both areas, he receives identically abysmal 33/58 ratings. The energy policy rating suggests that high gas prices are indeed hurting Bush politically and the prescription drugs rating indicates that the new discount drug cards are not–despite the predictions of various Republican operatives–improving public perceptions of Bush’s performance in this area.
Not a lot of good news here for the current occupant of the Oval Office. No wonder Republicans have been floating the idea of a Reagan death bounce for Bush. Nothing else seems to be working.

Gallup has put out an interesting new analysis discussing the high levels of partisan polarization in views of Bush. In the most recent Gallup poll, 89 percent of Republicans approve of the job Bush is doing as president, compared to just 12 percent of Democrats who approve. That 77 point gap is the highest of Bush’s presidency.
Moreover, the strength of partisan approval and disapproval is striking. Among Republicans, 64 percent strongly approve of Bush’s performance and, among Democrats, 66 percent strongly disapprove.
These are impressive figures, but for my money the most interesting data in the Gallup analysis are actually about independents. The analysis includes a chart of Bush approval by Democrat, Republican and independent which shows that, starting in early May, Bush’s approval rating among independents dropped to 40 percent and stayed there.
That drop, if not reversed, may well prove to be the death knell of Bush’s presidency. I just don’t see how Bush can pull it out if he’s only running at only 40 percent approval among independents; the close relationship between approval and voting support would imply a healthy Bush deficit among independents on election day which, in turn, would make it highly unlikely that Bush could win (keep in mind that Bush actually carried independents by 2 points in 2000 and still lost the popular vote).
Note also the structure of Bush’s approval rating among independents. His 40 percent approval rating only includes 16 percent who strongly approve of his performance. But, among the 55 percent who strongly disapprove of his performance, 41 percent strongly disapprove.
So Bush has independents fired up. Trouble for him is, it’s the wrong way: they’re fired up against him. Maybe that’s part of the reason why the Bush campaign seems to be concentrating on mobilizing their base; they’re hoping they can bring out those voters in droves and swamp the negative trend among independents.
But that’s probably not going to work either. According to figures cited by William Schneider in the National Journal, independents are following this year’s campaign with unusual intensity–not far removed, in fact, from the intensity with which Democratic and Republican partisans are following the race, which is, in turn, unusually high by historical standards.
Alas for Bush, this may turn out to be the election where everyone shows up. And, if that’s the case, it’ll be the Republican base that gets swamped, not the other way around.

The Annenberg Election Survey has just released some new data on “persuadable voters” in the battleground states (about 11 percent of the nation’s public) and it is very interesting data indeed. (Annenberg defines persuadable voters as those that say they are undecided or who have a preference but say there’s a “good chance” they could change their minds; for Annenebeg’s definition of battleground states, see my May 26 post.) Probably the most striking thing about the data is how little these voters like George Bush and where he’s led the country.
Consider these findings. Swing voters in swing states give Bush an overall approval rating of just 44 percent. But that’s good compared to how they feel about Bush’s handling of the economy and Iraq. In both cases, Bush’s approval rating is a stunningly low 30 percent, with 60 percent disapproval. Wow. Sounds like these voters are ready for a change.
That’s confirmed by their responses to th right direction/wrong track question: 2:1 wrong track over right direction (59/25). In addition, 85 percent of these voters believe the current state of the economy is only fair or poor and only 14 percent believe Bush’s economic policies have made the economy better.
As Bush’s 30 percent approval rating on Iraq suggests, these voters are very negative indeed on the Iraq situation and whether it’s accomplishing anything positive. By an overwhelming 69-20 margin, they don’t believe Bush has a clear plan to bring the Iraq situation to a successful conclusion. By a similar margin (67-19), they don’t believe the war in Iraq has reduced the risk of terrorist attacks against the US. They also don’t believe, by 53-40, that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over.
And they’re interested in getting US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. By 52-41, they say we should bring our troops home as soon as possible, rather than keeping troops in Iraq until a stable government is formed (the public as a whole narrowly favors keeping troops in Iraq by 49-46).
Note also that Bush’s approval rating on handling the war on terrorism among these voters is net negative (44/50).
Besides their decidedly negative views on Bush, other characteristics of these voters suggest their accessibility to Kerry’s campaign. Compared to the general public, either nationwide or just in the battleground states, these voters are less likely to describe themselves as conservative, less likely to be Republican, less likely to attend church frequently and less likely to own a gun.
Is it a done deal for John Kerry among these voters then? No. He still has to close the sale. At this point, his net favorability rating among these voters (+3) is no higher than Bush’s. These voters are also paying less attention to the campaign than other voters, so Kerry will need to catch their attention to turn them decisively in his direction.
And that brings us back to the boldness issue I’ve been posting about lately. Kerry needs to excite voters in general about his campaign and these voters in particular. As the campaign unfolds, an overly cautious approach may miss an opportunity to turn the swing voters in swing states into a Kerry constituency. And note these voters’ sentiment about keeping troops in Iraq. Even if he doesn’t want to specify an exit date, he does need to convey to these voters that he has a plan for successfully concluding the Iraq war and getting those troops back home.

Just how bold does John Kerry need to be? There’s certainly a reasonable argument that he doesn’t need to be bold at all. As pollster Mark Penn remarked in some story I read, many successful campaigns have been run on little more than “it’s time for a change”.
Can John Kerry get away with such an approach? Maybe. Certainly, his lack of a bold approach in one area–Iraq–has seemed to work fairly well so far. As discussed in my previous post, Kerry has resisted putting forward an exit strategy for Iraq, choosing instead to focus on improving and internationalizing Bush’s policy by bringing in NATO troops, establishing an international high commissioner for Iraq, more training for Iraq’s own security forces and so on. This may not be a crystal clear alternative to the direction of Bush’s policy but, as Bush’s policy has imploded and dragged him down politically, Kerry’s campaign has been able to benefit from Bush’s woes nonetheless.
For some, this has been exactly the right approach and should be continued indefinitely (see, for example, Noam Scheiber’s comments in his New Republic blog). The theory is that anything as specific as an exit strategy on Kerry’s part would shift the political conversation away from the actually-existing mess in Iraq and toward discussion of Kerry’s strategy and whatever Bush’s counter to that strategy would be. That would be bad since that would interfere with hanging the whole Iraq mess around Bush’s neck and forcing him to “own it”, as the expression goes.
Could be. But doesn’t it come down to how well you think such an approach fits into the generally-accepted two stage process by which a challenger can beat an incumbent president? First, voters have to decide they’re interested in firing the incumbent; then they have to decide that the challenger is a good alternative to the incumbent. Clearly, the cautious approach fits well into the first part of the process–as voters are getting convinced the incumbent needs to go, why confuse them with a lot of “bold” ideas from the challenger? Let the voters think long and hard about how bad the incumbent is, not the detailed plans of the challenger.
So far so good. But it is in the second part of the process–voters deciding they want to hire the challenger–that an approach distinguished mostly by caution can run into trouble. Granted, if voters hate the incumbent enough, the challenger can do and say very little and still appear to be a compelling alternative to voters. But, for all Bush’s problems, I don’t think this is going to be one of those elections. Among swing voters–not Democratic voters, who I believe will cut Kerry a great deal of slack in the agenda department–the distaste for Bush does not run deep enough. They will need a reason to believe in John Kerry.
Which brings us back to Iraq. David Corn has an interesting piece, “How Bold Should Kerry Go“, on The Nation website, which quotes a Democrat close to Kerry’s foreign policy team as saying:
Kerry is playing it very cautiously. It’s a prevent-defense kind of game. He’s counting on Bush to keep making mistakes. I’m skeptical of it. But it could work. My fear is that he’s not setting a strong enough foundation for people not only to reject Bush but to embrace Kerry.
Exactly. Among voters who need to be convinced the most, cautious may not cut it. Here’s a revealing passage from a good article by Tim Grieve on Salon about Kerry’s recent campaiging:
Oddly, it’s the more conservative Democrats — plus swing voters and Republicans thinking of crossing over — who may need to hear more of Kerry’s Iraq alternative. Beverly Weyenberg, a retiree who turned out to see Kerry in Green Bay Thursday night, saw the candidate on TV about six months ago and knew instantly that he’d be her choice. “I felt it so strongly that I wrote it down on my calendar,” she says, adding that she “felt the same way about John F. Kennedy.” Still, she gets a little teary when she starts to thinking about those “kids” dying in Iraq, and she wants to know Kerry’s plan for bringing them home soon.
So, too, does a Republican shuttle-bus driver in Green Bay who voted for Bush in 2000 but is having second thoughts now. He can’t help thinking that the war was really about oil, that Donald Rumsfeld is hiding something. He trusts Bush because he trusts Colin Powell, but with Powell on the outs he’s worried. He’s thinking about Kerry, he said, but he’s worried that Kerry won’t be able to get out of Iraq, either.
Sure, these anecdotes are hardly definitive, but they get at what’s worrying me about the Kerry approach. There’s a point at which stage one (reject the incumbent) must turn into stage two (hire the challenger) and, so far, I’m not convinced Kerry’s got his stage two mojo working.
And I don’t just mean on Iraq and foreign policy. I mean in the domestic arena too. But that’s a subject for another post.

It has been widely acknowledged that Kerry has a problem differentiating himself from Bush on how to handle the Iraq situation, given that Kerry won’t commit himself to, or even talk about, an exit strategy. But it has been widely misunderstood that that problem lies in Kerry’s appeal to Democratic voters.
Personally, I think Democratic voters are likely to stick with Kerry no matter what his Iraq position–because they want to get rid of Bush so badly. What I worry about is his ability to appeal to independent voters, without some kind of exit strategy.
Consider how fed up political independents are getting with the Iraq situation. In the latest CBS News poll, an overwhelming majority of independents say the result of the war with Iraq hasn’t been worth the loss of American life and other costs of the war (67-25). And in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, by more than 2:1 (65-32), independents believe we have gotten bogged down in Iraq. rather than making good progress.
Moreover, according to the CBS News poll, this is a group that now believes, by 52-40, we made a mistake getting involved in the war in Iraq and also believes, by 49-44, that we should have just stayed out of Iraq, rather than taking military action. Finally, independents have been in favor, for the last month, of turning over “control to Iraqis as soon as possible, even if Iraq is not completely stable” rather than having “United States troops stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy” (essentially the Kerry position). In the latest CBS News poll, the margin among independents is 51-43 in favor of turning over control to Iraqis as soon as possible.
Despite these sentiments and the clear direction of change among these voters–toward less and less interest ins staying the course and more and more interest in an exit strategy–Kerry has refused, so far, to even mention the “E” word. Why?
One reason may be because he believes it would be wrong to simply withdraw the troops and abandon Iraq. And he’s right about that. But there are ways to talk about an exit strategy without being irresponsible; an exit strategy doesn’t mean just yanking the troops out. But it does mean setting a date to leave and a plan to turn genuine control of Iraq to an elected Iraqi government within that time frame.
James Steinberg and Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution have sketched the elements of such a plan, with an exit date of the end of 2005, hardly a precipitate departure. Other sober-minded foreign policy analysts like Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, have called for a similar approach.
An exit strategy: it’s not just for hard-core peaceniks anymore. Increasingly, mainstream analysts and mainstream voters–i.e., independent, swing voters–are leaning in that direction as well. Kerry has a chance to reach these voters with something clear and definite about how he intends to get the US out of Iraq. And if he doesn’t, who’s to say that Bush might not put one on the table first?
That’s something to be avoided. C’mon, John, can you say E-X-I-T? I think you can.

The Annenberg Election Survey released data today that suggest Kerry’s ads in the battleground states are having the desired effect of improving public impressions of Kerry in those states. In the May 3-16 period, Kerry’s favorability rating in the battleground states was 39 favorable/33 unfavorable. In the May 17-23 period, his rating improved to 44/32. As for Bush, his favorability rating in these states has declined from 48/38 to 44/44.
Other recently-released swing states data are also positive for Kerry. Yesterday, I mentioned the Gallup data which showed Kerry ahead by 5 in the “purple states” (the 16 states where the 2000 winning margin was less than 6 points; note that Annenberg’s “battleground states” include all 20 states where the Bush and Kerry campaigns have been running TV advertisements–that means, in addition to the purple 16, Annenberg includes CO, DE, LA and WV). And Zogby has recently released a group of 16 “battleground state” polls(here, battleground states are the same as Gallup’s purple states, with the exception of WV being substituted for ME), conducted May 18-23 for WSJ.com. These polls show Kerry ahead in 12 of these 16 battleground states: FL, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, OH, OR, PA, WA and WI. Bush is only ahead in four: AR, IA, TN and WV.
Note that all these polls included Nader in the trial heat mix, so these results are particularly bad news for the Bush campaign. Note also, that where Kerry leads in 2000 blue states, his leads are all outside the margin of error. In addition, his leads in the 2000 red states of Ohio (+5) and New Hampshire (+10) are also outside the margin of error.
One caveat: the Zogby polls were conducted over the internet with “respondents who agreed to take part. Likely voters from each state followed instructions sent by e-mail that led them to the survey located on Zogby’s secure servers in Utica, N.Y”. Well, this isn’t like an internet “poll” where anyone who wants to can participate, but one still wonders whether this kind of polling might be biased in ways that would throw off the results. I don’t know that for sure, but it’s a caution that’s worth keeping in mind.

We have three new public polls to consider:
CBS News, May 20-23
ABC News/Washington Post, May 20-23
Gallup, May 21-23
Note that the survey dates for all three polls are virtually identical. Comparing apples to apples–that is, my favorite apples of RV, Kerry-Bush matchups–all three polls agree Kerry is ahead: Gallup by 48-46; ABC News by 49-47 and CBS News by 49-41.
On the CBS News result, their internals show Kerry leading by 16 points (!) among independents (51-35). My my. Considering that Kerry only needs to win independents by a few points to pretty much guarantee himself an election victory, that’s quite a result.
For what it’s worth, Gallup finally has its RVs and LVs agreeing: Kerry is ahead in both samples by two. In their last poll, Bush was ahead by 1 among LVs, while behind by 6 among RVs.
Gallup also provides a breakdown of the RV, Kerry-Bush matchup by red, blue and purple states (thanks, Gallup!). That breakdown shows Kerry leading by 5 points in the purple states (50-45). In 2000, Gore and Bush were dead-even (48-48) in the purple states.
Not a bad set of horse race results for Mr. Kerry, not bad at all.

Pretty poorly, in my judgement. You can read my reaction and that a number of other interesting folks in this compilation at Salon.com.
Here’s the first few paragraphs of my comment, in case you don’t have a Salon sub (get one!). But the compilation as a whole is well worth reading, if you have access.
President Bush’s speech, whose purpose was to rally public opinion in favor of his Iraq policy, proposed no change of course and no timeline for concluding U.S. involvement. Indeed, with the exception of bulldozing the Abu Ghraib prison, Bush offered absolutely no new ideas on how to deal with the huge difficulties the U.S. currently confronts in Iraq. Instead, he appeared to be relying on a strategy of looking stern and determined, saying that “the terrorists cannot be allowed to win” and comparing the American vision of “liberty and life” with the terrorists’ vision of “tyranny and murder.” If that all sounds familiar, it’s because Bush has been striking the same poses and saying the same things — to decreasing effect — ever since the U.S. invaded Iraq, and, in fact, considerably before it.
This is not likely to be an effective strategy. The public has turned increasingly negative on the war in Iraq and, more broadly, on Bush’s conduct of the war on terrorism. Simply asserting that we’re doing the right thing and we must continue to do it is not going to turn those negative views around. Instead, since the public believes that the current course in Iraq is not containing, much less resolving, the very serious problems, proposing a change from that course was the only plausible way to turn public opinion in his direction.
That is exactly what Bush failed to do and why we may reasonably expect that public opinion will not turn in his favor. And public opinion now is remarkably negative.

Wow! Not only has Bush’s approval rating on handling the war on terrorism been dropping like a stone, the Annenberg Election Survey has now measured it in net negative territory: 46 percent approval/50 percent disapproval (May 17-23). That’s a first and a very significant first. It means Bush’s area of greatest strength is rapidly turning into political liability.
And check out the internals on this question: 41/53 among independents; 41/56 among 18-29 year olds; 41/56 among Hispanics and 40/54 among moderates.
The poll also finds the public now saying that the soldiers at Abu Ghraib followed orders (48 percent), rather than acted on their own (30 percent). That’s a switch from two weeks ago when it was 47-31 the other way.
The poll has Bush’s approval rating on Iraq at 39/57, including just 33/61 among independents and 30/66 among Hispanics. And, on whether “the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, or not”, the poll finds just 40 percent saying it was worth it, compared to 54 percent who say it wasn’t. Among independents, the split is slightly more negative at 39/55, much more negative among moderates (30/64) and stunningly more negative among Hispanics (22/75).
These numbers are bad enough, but the numbers in the new CBS News poll (May 20-23) are, if anything, even worse. Consider this one: only 30 percent now say the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 65 percent who say it is off on the wrong track. The latter is the highest number ever recorded by the CBS News poll since it started asking this question in the mid-1980s. As the CBS News polling analysis puts it:
The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was back in November 1994. Then, Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades.
The poll also finds Bush’s overall approval rating down at 41 percent, with 52 percent disapproval. I believe that’s the lowest of any public poll during Bush’s presidency. In addition, Bush’s job rating on foreign policy is 37/56 and his rating on the economy is 36/57.
Speaking of the economy, only 20 percent believe Bush administration policies have increased the number of jobs in the US and more people now believe the economy is getting worse (32 percent) than getting better (23 percent). Last month, the figures were roughly reversed at 30 percent better/26 percent worse.
Guess that better be a hell of a speech tonight! The public does not seem, shall we say, to be in a particularly receptive mood for the president.

I’ve been arguing for quite a while that the key numbers to look at are not the horse race numbers between Kerry and Bush but rather all the indicators that show voters losing confidence in the incumbent. We’ve had those in abundance for a couple of months, including indicators that show declining voter confidence in Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism, once his seemingly impregnable electoral advantage.
But now that Kerry seems to have taken a small lead in the horse race and now that the media have finally absorbed the fundamental fact that Bush is doing poorly, not well, in comparison to previous incumbent presidents, perhaps it’s time to strike a few cautionary notes. After all, the election is still over five months away, the lead may change hands again several times, and Kerry’s position, while strong, is hardly unassailable.
A first cautionary note worth paying attention to is provided by Matthew Yglesias in an article on the The American Prospect website. As Yglesias rightly points out, the elections about which we have relevant polling data only go back to 1948, which is a mighty small dataset. Hence, just as caution was well-advised when it appeared by historical standards that Bush would win, so is caution well-advised now when it appears that, by those standards, he is likely to lose. Moreover, as Yglesias points out, if you expand the number of cases under consideration by including elections where a sitting vice president runs to succeed an incumbent president (1960, 1988, 2000) as sort of quasi-incumbent elections, the historical picture looks a little cloudier.
Personally, I still think Bush is in a great deal of trouble. But we should be cautious about relying too much on the historical record in assessing his likelihood of losing.
Another cautionary note is struck by Terence Samuel, also on the Prospect website. His article, “Chicken Littles Recant“, points out how quickly Democrats tend to go from being more depressed than they should be by political trends (oh no, Kerry’s only running even with Bush; he should be ahead by 10 points; disaster looms!!) to being excessively optimistic (Kerry’s ahead, Bush is sinking fast–Kerry’s going to win by a landslide!!)
As he points out:
This is an up moment, but it was only a few weeks ago that some influential but unnamed Democrats were wringing their hands on the front page of The New York Times about how Kerry was blowing their big opportunity to win back the White House.
Let’s try to remember this and not get similarly silly the next time the polls and news cycle go south for Kerry.
Finally, Josh Marshall cautions us not to conclude from the current good news that now is the time for Kerry to ratchet up his aggressiveness and take center stage away from the president. As he puts it:
….partisan polarization will intensify in the coming months. And that will help the president in many ways, getting some of the attention off him and on to Kerry. But a judgment about the president like the [negative] one I’ve described above, once made, can be hard to unmake. And for the moment, with so many of the president’s actions delivering abysmal dividends to the nation he’s led, that judgment is being made against the president. So, for the moment, I’m not sure having Kerry give Bush center stage is such a bad thing.
Of course, that doesn’t really tell us when Kerry should turn up the heat. But it’s a reasonable point that we should not necessarily assume that a bit of good news means that time is now.