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Bush Approval
How did all of these events affect Bush's image in the eyes of Americans? Despite what many would have thought would be a bad week for the Bush administration, the weekend CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicates that Bush appears to have come through it unscathed, and if anything is in somewhat of a better position than he was before.
Bush's job approval rating has been hovering right on the edge of the danger zone for a presidential incumbent -- 50% -- for well over a month now. The most recent March 26-28 poll shows that Bush's rating has gone up slightly to 53%. This is within the general range of Bush's ratings since mid-January, but the important indicator is the trend, which is slightly up rather than down. It appears that all the pounding that Bush and his administration have taken over the last week or two has either escaped the attention of most Americans, or has somehow caused a mini rally effect of sorts, as Americans solidify their support of Bush's performance in office.
Bush vs. Kerry
There is a high degree of correlation between an incumbent president's job approval rating and his election prospects. Thus, given the uptick in Bush's job approval rating, it is no surprise to find that he has moved slightly ahead of Kerry in the trial heat ballot for next fall's election. In a two-way matchup, Bush gets 49% of support from registered voters compared with Kerry's 46%. Three weeks ago in Gallup's March 5-7 poll, Kerry led Bush among registered voters by a 50% to 45% margin. With Ralph Nader in the mix, Bush has a slightly larger five-point lead among registered voters: Bush 48%, Kerry 43%, and Nader 5%.
The key is not the absolute margin Bush has over Kerry, but rather the trend. After three straight Gallup Polls in which Bush trailed Kerry, he has pulled back into a slight lead.
This change is not necessarily unexpected, given that the Bush re-election campaign has unleashed ads critical of Kerry, and Bush and other administration members have begun focusing on Kerry in their speeches. The Bush campaign is seeking to stop the erosion of Bush support that came about as the Democrats occupied center stage throughout the primary season. The weekend poll data suggest that the strategy has been successful.
There is also evidence that the Republicans have been successful in their attempt to create the image of Kerry as a liberal in the minds of voters. The percentage of Americans who believe that Kerry's policies as president would be too liberal has gone from 29% in a Jan. 29-Feb. 1 poll, to 41% now. This is just about on par with Bush's image at the other end of the ideological spectrum: 38% of Americans believe Bush is too conservative, although there has been no significant change in this percentage since the Jan. 29-Feb. 1 poll.
Kerry's overall image has also suffered slightly over the last month or so. In a mid-February poll, Kerry was viewed favorably by 60% of the public, and unfavorably by 26%. Now, Kerry's favorable rating is down to 53%, while his unfavorable rating has climbed to 36%. Again, it's reasonable to assume that a good deal of this erosion is in reaction to the Republican campaigning.
One way to evaluate Kerry's situation is to compare the percentage of registered voters who say they will vote for him -- 45% -- to his favorable rating -- 53%. This comparison is still good news for Kerry, as there continues to be a segment of the population that likes him but does not yet plan to vote for him. The situation would be negative for Kerry if his unfavorable rating and the percentage saying they plan to vote for him were at parity -- suggesting that he was bumping up against his ceiling of potential support.
There's been a subtle -- but not unexpected -- shift in the intensity with which political segments of the population are looking at the presidential race. In the three previous Gallup Polls, Democrats were slightly more highly represented in the "likely voter" pool than in the registered voter pool. In other words, Gallup estimated that if the election were held at the time of the survey, Democrats would have had a better turnout than Republicans, obviously benefiting Kerry.
In the most recent poll, Bush does slightly better among likely voters than among registered voters (a four-point lead over Kerry as opposed to a three-point lead). This isn't a significant difference in and of itself, but it does signify a shift back to the more normal state of affairs, in which Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats are.
Richard Clarke and Iraq
As can be seen from the trends in Bush job approval and the general election ballot, there isn't a great deal of evidence that the Clarke testimony (and the 9/11 commission hearings) have fundamentally hurt Bush. The Bush administration moved very quickly to counter Clarke's claims and attempted to discredit his motives, and these quick retaliation efforts appear to have worked. Also, only 26% of Americans say that they have been following the Clarke charges closely.
At the same time, it doesn't appear that Clarke has been totally discredited. Asked whom they believe more when it comes to statements about what happened leading up to 9/11, 46% say the Bush administration, while 44% say Clarke. And 53% say the Bush administration is covering something up relating to the intelligence information it had before the 9/11 attacks.
Some of Clarke's testimony, statements to the press, and book excerpts have stressed the degree to which the Bush administration was eager to get into Iraq almost immediately after the attacks. Clarke has also been quoted as saying that the Iraq incursion actually increased the likelihood of terrorism rather than diminishing it. But a weekend Newsweek poll indicates that two-thirds of Americans said that the Clarke testimony hasn't affected their feelings about Bush.
In fact, one of the key findings from the weekend Gallup Poll is that a majority of Americans continue to say that the war in Iraq was worth it. Currently, 56% of Americans say the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over -- about the same as our early March reading, and up from the low of 49% measured in late January/early February.
This measure is perhaps the single-best indicator we have on the potency of the Iraq war as an election issue. If less than half of Americans consistently say that the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over, Bush could be quite vulnerable on this issue. So far, that hasn't happened.
Additionally, a slight majority of Americans -- 51% -- say they approve of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq -- up slightly from late January/early February.
Gallup polling in late January/early February showed that Kerry was actually in a slightly better position than Bush when the public was asked which man they would trust more if a situation arose in which it was necessary to send American troops into war. Now, those numbers have changed dramatically. The public would prefer Bush to Kerry in a war situation, by a 52% to 41% margin.
Americans Evenly Split
It's fascinating to note the degree to which the political situation is still so evenly balanced. In addition to the statistical tie in the basic trial heat ballot between Bush and Kerry, we find that Americans are split right down the middle in terms of which party they would like to see control Congress: 39% say Republicans and 41% say Democrats. The rest say they don't want either party, say the country will be the same either way, or have no opinion.