(
This may be the coolest diary ever -- kos)
This is not Bush Country. It's blue from sea to shining sea.
Yes, that's right, you can now travel through the US from the Atlantic to the Pacific without setting foot in a state where Bush's approval tops 45%, according to the March Survey USA polls:
Click to enlarge.
The Republicans are no longer fanatically approving, after the Dubai Ports World deal, repeated mention of the term `Civil War' in relation to Iraq, and, possibly, Medicare Part D. Will they like his immigration reform?
As usual, much more below, including maps by party, animations, and changes in approval by region.
Bush had a bad month -
down to 36% in Survey USA (
predicted by 14% of you), as confirmed by every other poll. This decrease of 4 points is an unusual significant change from last month's Survey USA poll (see
Political Arithmetik to learn about comparing sequential polls). Bush has had a bad year too. As
Radical Russ first
showed us in an animation, we've turned blue. Delaware Dem put this animation in a diary so aptly titled
What More Do the Democrats Want?. Here's a different version using the same color scheme as the map above:
Click for animation - 1MB file.
Large size version (no fades, 500K) here.
If you, like me, are mesmerized by watching that red fade over and over again, you might notice some regional trends. Not all places respond the same way. I lumped together a few states into regions, based on geography and statistical similarity in approval, and a little bit of hand waving (see descriptions below). The chart below shows the results:
Click to enlarge. Approval ratings weighted by population. A clean chart without events is here.
I put selected events on the chart - surely there are others, but it's a little crowded. A few interesting things can be seen. Some areas clearly did not respond to Bush's cheerleading last November (Northeast and Ohio River Valley); most regions appeared to. Just before the January poll, the stock market finally broke through 11,000; did this cause Northeast Republicans to celebrate? Did the announcement of Justice O'Conner's retirement from the Supreme Court get the base in the Mountain West, Midwest, and some in the South all excited? Why didn't the Dubai ports deal tick off the West Coast?
Regional definitions (not all states included, and labels are not perfect either):
South: NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX. MS & AL tend to behave differently, but I included them anyway.
Plains: NE, KS, MO, IA, SD, ND, MT
Mountain West: ID, WY, CO, AZ, NM, HI
Ohio Valley: WV, OH, IN, KY, TN
Midwest: MI, IL, WI, MN
Midatlantic: NJ, MD, DE, VA
West Coast: CA, NV, OR, WA. Weighted by population, this is mostly CA. These are all similar in that they haven't changed much in the last six months. OR & WA are similar to each other.
Northeast: ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA
Changes since January
The most impressive changes in Bush's approval since January come among Republicans (-10), those in the Midatlantic (-8, entirely from Feb to Mar), 55+ (-7), Hispanics (-7, entirely from Jan to Feb) and those with a graduate degree (-7).
Whoa! A 10-point drop among Republicans? Let's look at that approval by party in more detail. Remember, the bright purple means highest approval ratings in these charts, and bright green lowest.
Click to enlarge each map. Approval by party in March, January, and the change for Republicans.
Bush has approval ratings in the 50s in parts of the Northeast among Republicans! He absolutely plummeted over the past few months in this area. But here's the problem: there's work to do tying Bush to the other Republicans. Approval ratings for Republican senators in the area are pretty much unchanged.
Changes in party approval
Over time, the changes in the President's approval ratings have been driven by changes in the approval among Republicans.
Click to enlarge.
Democrats have changed little, having no place to go, really. A slight dip from August to September (Cindy Sheehan and Hurricane Katrina?). Independents generally track the changes among Republicans and the country as a whole.
Here's animations for each party:
Click for animation, ~1MB files.
Larger pictures, with smaller file sizes, are here for Reps, Inds, and Dems.
Dems in the broader Midwest region seem the most disapproving and constant. Bush's approval rating in Ohio never goes above 10%.
Republicans not only have decreased in approval rating to only 70%, they've lost a few people along the way. So really, if you include the folks who called themselves Republicans last year, and assume they don't like Bush now, his approval among Republicans is only in the 60s. There's an excellent post over at Political Arithmetik showing the decrease in Republicans among nearly all pollsters. It's true for Survey USA, too, as I discussed a few months ago, although it seems to have leveled off since then:
Click to enlarge.
So, Bush's approval ratings are lousy - even worse than before. Even Republicans aren't in love with him any more. So what? This represents opportunity. It's been said many times now: tie the Rubber Stamp Republicans to Bush and watch them sink. It's not a guarantee, but it's one factor in favor of Democrats, not Republicans.
The DumbAss Index.
Finally, this bit. The Pew poll has a feature I've seen lots of people talking about, where they ask an open ended question about Bush. The responses include lots of interesting words, topped this month by Incompetent.
I've added the number of volunteered responses for each of the following eight words representing a visceral negative reaction to Bush: Dumb, Ass, Stupid, Idiot, Liar, Jerk, Sucks, and Terrible. This is what I call the DumbAss index. Here is how it increases over time:
Click to enlarge.
Related diaries:
Estimates of approval in counties and districts Currently, you should subtract about 3 points from these estimates.
Maps by age, party, race, education, and gender (January)
Focus on education (November)
Focus on party (November)
November map