Not to long ago, I was bemoaning
Gallup's approval numbers for Bush. Boy was I wrong.
Exhibit A. The recent AP/Ipsos poll shows now that 54% of adults now disapprove of the job Bush is doing. Only 45% approve.
As to Gallup's numbers,
the sample breakdown almost completely discredits Gallup's results.
Soto notes that Bush's most recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup approval rating of 57 percent -- up from 52 percent in early January -- generated considerable buzz among the political pundocracy. But the sample was based on 37 percent Republicans, 35 percent Independents and just 28 percent Democrats--this depite other recent polls showing the Democrats taking a lead over the GOP...
As Soto points out:
Gallup feels that Democrats have fallen through the floor amongst the electorate as a whole, even though other polls since the election show the Democrats retaking a lead over the GOP.
The mid-January NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was based on a sample that contained 39% Republicans and 39% Democrats; poll respondents said that Bush did not have a mandate.
The mid-January CBS News/New York Times poll was based on a sample that contained 34% Democrats and 31% Republicans.
The Pew Center poll and analysis released January 24, 2005 reflected a split of 33% Democrat, 30% Republican.
And it should be noted than an ABC News/Washington Post poll done in mid-December showed that Americans self-identified 11% more as being Democrats (38%) than those who identified as being Republican (27%).
Yet Gallup looks at the electorate over the weekend and somehow feels that Democrats have fallen to only 28% of the electorate, a figure never seen for the party in decades if ever. At what point in our history over the last several decades has the GOP ever had a 9% edge over the Democrats? And knowing that, why would they put out a poll showing a 57% approval rating when they must know that it is based on a bogus sample?
Teixeria also points out that no other concurrent poll has seen Bush even remotely approaching those numbers.
Newsweek, however, polled on February 3-4--after the Iraqi elections--and found only a 50 percent rating for Bush. But the Gallup poll was February 4-6 so perhaps this surge was late developing?
But, inconveniently for Gallup, Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University were in the field February 3-6 and they also found just a 50 percent approval rating for Bush.
And here's the coup de grace: the new Fox News poll, not generally known for being unfriendly to the president and low-balling his approval rating, found his approval rating, on February 8-9, to be only 51 percent. Moreover, Fox's 51 percent rating is actually a point below their mid-January rating for Bush, while Gallup's recent 57 percent rating is six points above their mid-January rating for the president.
Whew. I feel much better now. Thanks to everyone who futilely attempted to talk me down from that Gallup panic.