<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>  <DIV align=center>Copyright 2002 The National Journal, Inc.   The National Journal </DIV> <DIV align=center>March 23, 2002 </DIV> SECTION: POLITICS; Vol. 34, No. 12 LENGTH: 752 words HEADLINE: President's Ratings No Longer Defy Gravity BYLINE: Charlie Cook BODY: For a President whose job-approval rating has hit 90 percent, as George W. Bush's did in a Gallup Poll in late September, there is only one direction for his popularity to go: down. Even Bush's most ardent defenders-inside and outside the White House-concede that point. But how far will Bush's ratings drop? And where will they level off? In 2001, Bush's approval rating among all adults stayed in the 50s in 16 of the 17 Gallup Polls conducted between March 9 and September 11. (The President once reached 62 percent in April.) During most of that time, his ratings stayed between 55 percent and 57 percent. But by August, Bush's job approval was slipping, and it fell to a low of 51 percent in the last poll before September 11. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, Bush's rating shot up to 86 percent, hit 90 percent in Gallup's September 21-22 poll, then hovered between 86 percent and 89 percent for the rest of the year. Once 2002 began, so did a gradual decline in Bush's standing. Gallup's three January polls pegged his approval rating at 83 percent or 84 percent. The next three-in February and the first three days of March-showed Bush at 81 percent or 82 percent. The March 4-7 Gallup Poll put his rating at 77 percent, and one taken March 8-9 had it at 80 percent. Meanwhile, in 2002 Ipsos-Reid U.S. Public Affairs polls of registered voters conducted for The Cook Political Report, Bush's ratings have also been in a gradual decline, dropping about 3 percentage points every four weeks-from 80 percent in two January surveys to 78 percent in two February surveys and now to 74 percent in a pair of March polls. Rather than saying that the President's ratings are falling, perhaps it would be fairer to say they are settling. Still, the arrow is pointing downward. Gravity does exist. And if the Ipsos-Reid pattern of a 3-point decline every four weeks were to continue, Bush would be down to-or even below-his pre-9/11 average of 55 percent by November. Matthew Dowd, the senior adviser to the Republican National Committee who oversees polling for the White House, says, "Obviously, the Bush approval numbers will fall, and have fallen, from the high of 90 percent. The first numbers moving [away from Bush] are among the Democratic base." He adds: "The amazing thing is that the numbers have stayed this high for this long. It is setting all new historical records." Dowd continues, "My guess is that the [President's] numbers will settle out eventually at a place 8 to 10 points higher than they were right before 9/11, which means around 63 to 65 percent." Republican pollster William McInturff is more bullish for the President. Past Presidents whose ratings surged because of a crisis saw their numbers drift down to pre-crisis levels within 40 to 46 weeks. Yet McInturff predicts that Bush's ratings might stay in at least the "high 60s to the low 70s through 2002." McInturff argues that Bush's ratings were held down during the early months of his presidency because of lingering Democratic anger over the Florida ballot-counting controversy. And even before 9/11, McInturff points out, Bush had a 57 percent "strong approval" rating among Republicans. Six months after the attacks, his "strong approval" rating within his party is 89 percent. McInturff contends that Bush has already lost the support of adults who were most likely to defect from him and that a huge portion of those who remain hold a very high opinion of him. In McInturff's view, Bush's high ratings "are not based simply on the success of his policies.... [People are] impressed by his personal strength and sense of leadership." In polling by McInturff's firm, Public Opinion Strategies, 44 percent of those who approve of Bush's performance cite his "personal strength and sense of leadership since September 11." McInturff points out that Presidents' approval ratings tend to register 17 to 22 points above the percentage of Americans who say the country is headed the right way. In the most recent Ipsos-Reid surveys, 61 percent of respondents say the country is going in the right direction. McInturff argues, "Even if 'right direction' fell to 48 percent, it means President Bush could sustain job approval numbers in the high 60s to the lower 70s." Will Bush's approval ratings fall back to the mid-50s by the November 5 midterm elections? The cause of his surge was so unprecedented that history is an unreliable guide. </DIV></BODY></HTML>