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Data from our weekend's April 16-18 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll suggest that we can reject the hypothesis that Bush's positioning has been weakened in the minds of Americans because of last week's events. The president's overall job approval and favorability ratings have remained virtually unchanged, and he has moved to a slightly larger lead than in recent weeks when pitted against presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry in a trial heat ballot.
Bush's job approval rating is 52%, unchanged from early April, and very much in line with what Gallup has measured across 10 separate polls since mid-January. His highest job approval rating during that period was 53%. His lowest was 49%. This four-point range is minimal and basically reflects no statistically significant change. In other words, through all of the tumult and turmoil of the last three months, the public's assessment of the job the president is doing has remained essentially constant.
As the year goes by, each poll in which Bush's job approval rating stays above 50% becomes a better sign for his re-election chances. Over the last 50 years, the three presidential incumbents who lost their bids for a second term had approval ratings below that level by this point in their election years.
Bush also holds his own when voters are asked directly for whom they would vote if the presidential election were held today. Among registered voters, Bush leads Kerry by a 50% to 46% margin. (Bush leads 51% to 46% among likely voters.)
Bush has gained four points since early April among registered voters; Kerry has lost two points. This is not a significant change. It is normal at this point in the campaign to see some movement from poll to poll in the relative positioning of the candidates. Still, I believe the key finding in these data is the fact that Bush has not lost standing vis-a-vis Kerry, even as the events in Iraq have so dominated the nation's news coverage.
Bush maintains a 56% favorable, 42% unfavorable image rating, little changed over the last two months. Kerry has a similar ratio of 54% favorable to 37% unfavorable. Kerry's unfavorables rose from 23% in late January to 36% in late March, but have not changed significantly since that time.
Iraq
Most measures of Americans' views of the situation in Iraq remained fairly stable in the April 16-18 poll. Approval of the way in which Bush is handling the situation in Iraq is now at 48%, compared with 51% in late March and 46% in late January/early February. Fifty-two percent of Americans say that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, compared with 50% in Gallup's April 5-8 poll. Forty-two percent now believe that it was a mistake for the United States to get involved in Iraq, exactly the same percentage that felt this way in mid-January when the question was last asked, and very similar to the measurements in November and October 2003.
There has, however, been one significant change in the way the public feels about Iraq. A third (33%) of Americans now say that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be increased. That's the highest percentage holding that view across the eight times that Gallup has asked the question since late August. Another 25% of Americans say that the troop strength level should be kept as is, while the rest say that some troops (16%) or all troops (21%) should be withdrawn.
In response to a separate question, almost 6 in 10 Americans (58%) agree that the recent attacks against U.S. soldiers and civilians in Iraq show that the United States must intensify its military efforts in order to achieve its goals. Only a third (35%) agree with the alternative -- that U.S. policy in Iraq is not working and the United States should begin to reduce its military efforts there.
All in all, these data suggest that there is at least a modest rally effect at work among Americans. The immediate reaction of the public to the increased insurgent activity and concomitant deaths of U.S. soldiers has not been to support a retreat from involvement in Iraq, but rather to call for an increase in the number of troops there.
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