The Baltimore Sun has an
article today describing how Bush's popularity in the state of Maryland is at an all-time low. 33% approval rating now, versus 83% approval in January 2002. Although this is hardly a surprise considering national trends and that Maryland is fairly blue.
The interesting thing is that most Maryland Republicans now oppose his Iraq policies amongst other things.
More numbers and comments on the flip...
This phone poll of 1008 Maryland voters was conducted from Oct. 27 through Nov. 1. MOE is 3.2%.
51% of Republicans support withdrawing troops from Iraq. This is a stark contrast to the January 2005 poll that found 70% of Republicans said the Iraq war was worth it. (Note these are two slightly different questions, though). The breakdown of how quickly to withdraw : 44% support withdrawing slowly and 7% support immediate withdrawl.
Amongst all voters, 69% support withdrawing from Iraq, with 51% saying slowly and 18% saying immediately.
One of the polled Republicans admitted thinking Saddam was linked with 9/11 and hence supported the war initially, but believes a slow pullout is due now. Another Republican thinks that our attempts to democratize the Middle East were unrealistic, and that it's time to come home now.
Bush's job approval fell amongst Republicans, from 86% approval in January to 70% now.
Independents had the largest shift, 49% approving in January to 24% approving now.