We all know Bush had unprecedented approval ratings shortly after 9-11, and we all know that Bush has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now. The statistic I'm interested in here, regarding Bush, is whether any other president in US history had such a large downturn of public opinion? Has Bush made it into the recordbooks for going from nearly unprecedented support to nearly unprecedented disapproval? Or, in other words, has any other POTUS lost the American public more than Bush, numerically speaking?
So if you go through every US president's approval, and take the difference between max and min values throughout their term, does POTUS actually have a larger spread than Bush does? And specifically, a spread in the downward direction. Thinking about it, it's really amazing how badly Bush had, and then lost, the general American public. If this is a record-breaker, is this the one take-home message for Bush's legacy?
If this swing statistic has been discussed before I'll delete the diary. I know people have mentioned POTUSes with lower approvals, and probably higher approvals than W's high, but I don't know if any one president himself ever swung so greatly in the eyes of the American public.
Update Thanks to ManFromMiddletown who pointed to The Roper Center's Database on Approval Ratings. Taking the data from only Gallup polls (to maintain consistency because only Gallup data is available from Bush 1 backwards) gives the most recent POTUS's as follows:
- Roosevelt - High of 84, Low of 48, Swing of 36
- Truman - High of 87, Low of 22, Swing of 65
- Eisenhower - High of 79, Low of 48, Swing of 31
- Kennedy - High of 80, Low of 56, Swing of 24
- Johnson - High of 80, Low of 35, Swing of 45
- Nixon - High of 67, Low of 23, Swing of 44
- Ford - High of 74, Low of 37, Swing of 37
- Carter - High of 75, Low of 28, Swing of 47
- Reagen - High of 68, Low of 35, Swing of 33
- Bush 1 - High of 89, Low of 29, Swing of 60
- Clinton - High of 73, Low of 37, Swing of 36
- Bush Jr - High of 90, Low of 31, Swing of 59
So thus far the largest swing (in Gallup poll) goes to Truman, Bush needs to sink 7 more Gallup points to beat him out. In fact, Papa Bush still beats out Junior in the swing category. It's interesting to note some general trends, as Bush and Truman both started high (well, Bush after 9-11) and just kept sinking lower and lower. While Clinton started out fairly low and then gradually built up to larger approvals. That trend in itself pretty much sums up their presidencies.