Poll: Bush Approval Low But Still Beats Kerry

May 5 — NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Bush's approval rating hovers at an all time low, but if the election were held today more voters would still vote for Bush than his Democratic rival John Kerry, according to a poll published on Wednesday.

The nationwide poll by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University found Republican Bush's lead over the Massachusetts senator had narrowed, but Kerry had not gained ground.

If the Nov. 2 election were held today, 43 percent of the registered voters surveyed April 26-May 3 said they would vote for Bush, 40 percent for Kerry and 6 percent for independent Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate. Bush had a six-point lead over Kerry in the previous Quinnipiac poll published March 25 -- 46 percent to 40 percent.

The poll found 46 percent of registered voters approve of the job Bush is doing and 47 percent disapprove. A CBS/New York Times survey released a week ago found the same result, which was down five points from early March and well below his 67 percent approval rating immediately after the fall of Baghdad a year ago.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040505_234.html

Kerry is not running a very efficient campaign so far BUT it is still early and Clinton was doing much worse at this time. Also, Bush just got doen running tons of ads..now John Kerry will run some. Also, Ralph isnt even on any ballots so you can assume at least 2-3% of those voters will go to Kerry.

It's just that the media won't listen.

People rarely get interested in campaigns until after Labor Day. Kerry needs to stay out there and articulate a positive message and show a clear alternative to the sorry state we're in. Groups like American Coming Together and others need to be busy registering voters. The rest of us need to keep our powder dry until September.

You know, Iraq is like a squirrel that's been dead in your garage for a week -- it's going to smell a whole lot worse before it gets better. Same with the economy. Employment has shown a mild uptick, but we're seeing record high personal bankruptcies and nearly 30,000 home foreclosures in April alone.

Be patient. It's going to happen.

why he is a credible alternative to Bush to the all-important "swing voters".

His approval rating is 46 percent, and his reelect is 43 percent. There are still many undecideds, even with Nader getting 6 percent (which is way more than he'll get in November) and those undecideds will go overwhelmingly to Kerry, giving him the margin he needs.

way behind the trends. Bush coninues to lose ground.

that suggests that his so-called approval ratings do not translate into votes.

No president with an approval rating of 46 percent ever wins. Period.

"if you take Ralph Nader out of the race John Kerry is much more likely to win"

every time, that message needs to be repeated.

His approval rating is very low.

That's a good thing.

:)

Try again..

Wait until the debating starts. That'll prove to be a no brainer.

Bush will stumble through with his usual mush-mouthed incoherence, now and again remembering to spout some silly soundbite his staff drilled into his pea-brain. Kerry will be articulate and in command of the facts. Afterwards, the media whores will declare Bush the winner because Kerry came across as too intellectual, which alienated him from Joe Sixpack. Bush cracked a few moronic jokes and therefore was more likeable and deserving of re-election.

Based on past experience. Or something even stupider, like Kerry's face is too long, but Bush's face is nice and round, so that makes him a better choice for president.

Kerry 40
+ Nader 5
=45
vs.
Bush 43
+Nader 1
=44

That leaves 11 undecided. Assume a 7/4 split for Kerry (historically, undecided go heavily to the challenger by about 2/1).

Then its
Kerry 52, Bush 48.

And Kerry has just started buying ads. Bush has been inundating the airwaves for a month or more. And where is he now? Behind by 4 points, as per the above.

The average is 85 percent going to the challenger. Bush's share of the vote will not be higher than his approval rating, and will likely be lower.

Team chimp have spent millions of dollars on advertising and he is going down in the polls. Kerry is just starting his ad campaign and I suspect with his positive message and "biography ad" we will see his stagnation lose it's grip. He will start to over take the chimp here before we know it.

Give it some time

Let us all repeat the truth: NO ONE who voted for Gore will vote for Bush unless their genitals are attached to electrodes. Bush cannot win unless the voting machines are rigged. Period.

We're getting a lot of improvement, but as this poll shows very well, it's all George Jr. dropping. None of it is Kerry improving.

Us liberals are doing a good job of explaining why George Jr. is a HORRIBLE President and why we need to get rid of him. But that's not enough. As I've said about Nader all along, it's not enough to bash him and blame him for 2000; you have to explain WHY we *should* be voting for the Democrat this time.

Kerry has got to get out there and get the word out one way or another as to why he's a GREAT candidate. Let the crazies (us, or at least me) take care of getting the word out as to why George Jr. is a terrible President.

Also I think the time has come to choose a dynamic, charismatic VP who can hit the campaign trail and hit it hard. Don't wait for the convention, when he'll already have a very positive glow. Now is the ciritical time, IMO.

david

I'm not worried about Kerry's numbers yet, nor the head-to-head polls. Many still don't know Kerry but everyone knows Bush. Bush's numbers matter, he's the president and everyone has an opinion and that opinion is fairly low.

Bush's share of the vote is pathetically low for an incumbent. Since the last poll, he's dropped from 46 to 43 percent while Kerry has held steady.

approval.

1. Gore won the first election by the majority. Those who voted for Gore last time will NOT be voting for Bush this time either. In fact they just may drag that brother or sister that just turned 18 to the polls with them.

2. Republicans are beginning to abandon their party little by little it seems. Don't have time to post articles and such proving this, but we've all got personal stories about how we know repubs that are "sick of bush" Also the log cabin republican deal. Then there's the conservative wing that is more fiscally conservative than they are socially liberal, but to these people, money not social issues matter and they see Bush as dangerous to their agenda of having a good economy which means more $$$ in their pockets. Such types will actually admit that Clinton was the best president they ever had for their wallets.

This group will either vote for Kerry, or in protest stay at home which STILL means lost votes for Bush.


So overall, screw the polls, we know the truth, the media just wants us watching their newest polls over and over again to help their ratings and keep us on the edge.

Kerry's going to sweep this election pure and simple. Our only fear should be if Bush has any more "election mercenaries" set up to steal or miscount votes in states.

43 bush
40 kerry
6 nader
----------
89%


I so dont trust Quinnipiac's numbers and this does nothing to gain my confidence.

Most of those won't go for Bush, either.

Salon has a story on why we shouldn't panic yet.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/05/kerry/print.html

(if you don't subscribe to salon, just click on "free day pass" (you'll have to look at a couple of screens of ads, but big deal!))

Here's a snip ...

"May 5, 2004 | With just months to go in an election that ought to be a referendum on President Bush, the New York Times runs a front-page story: The Democrats are in serious trouble. Although Bush's approval ratings are low, the presumptive Democratic nominee can't get any traction. His campaign "continues to confront a cloud of doubts and reservations," the Times says, and voters are complaining that he hasn't offered the country a clear vision for the future.

It may sound like the Times on John Kerry in 2004. In fact, it's the Times on Bill Clinton in 1992.

The media began making funeral plans for the Kerry campaign over the weekend, and the New York Times led the way with a gloomy front-pager by Adam Nagourney. As it turns out, the predictions of Kerry's demise were more replay than revelation. It's certainly true that Kerry has problems -- his campaign lacks the money, the organizational structure, and the message discipline of the well-oiled Bush-Cheney machine -- but we've heard this before.

The Times painted an equally dour assessment of Clinton's prospects in a front-page piece in April 1992 headlined "Clinton Dogged by Voter Doubt." The Times said then that unnamed "political professionals in the Democratic Party" were troubled that Clinton hadn't made a better impression on the nation's voters. Nagourney's piece Sunday reported that "Democratic Party officials" have similar worries about Kerry.

But there's a key difference here: In April 1992, the New York Times/CBS News poll showed Clinton trailing President George H.W. Bush, 49 percent to 40 percent, among registered voters. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows Kerry and President George W. Bush in a statistical dead heat.

Clinton beat Bush 43 percent to 37 percent in November 1992.

The Times does not stand alone in questioning the direction and momentum of the Kerry campaign. ...

But Democratic strategists have a message for the nervous: Don't panic. Yes, the Kerry campaign has been slow to organize itself, to get campaign operations up and running in could-be-crucial states like Ohio and Arizona, to define Kerry and to set him apart from Bush on the critical question of Iraq, to respond to -- or to take the high road above -- the incessant smears from the White House and its waves of surrogate attackers. But the race is young, Democratic strategists say, and this Bush is as vulnerable as the last one was. ..."

Can Clinton Save his Candidacy?

BY DONALD LAMBRO

Donald Lambro is the chief political corespondent for the Washington Times and a nationally syndicated columnist with United Feature Syndicate.

This is a year of turmoil and terror in the Democratic Party: Their likely presidential nominee battered, bloodied, and ridiculed even before the general election has begun; angry, unforgiving voters appear ready to wreak punishment on the scandal-ridden Democratic-controlled Congress; and a fiery anti-incumbent mood may be sweeping the nation.

"He's too cute by far. He talks like a lawyer when he says he didn't inhale . I find it hard to believe. He should have just said it was a mistake. No one is going to hold one of those thing against him. But one thing they will hold against him is playing it a little too cute."

"Both of these candidates are so flawed that there is no possibility of their defeating President Bush," former New York Mayor Ed Koch said of both Clinton and former California Gov. Jerry Brown. "Bill Clinton has no credibility."

http://www.worldandi.com/public/1992/june/cr6.cfm

Today Kerry 47% Bush 43%
May 4th Kerry 46% Bush 43%
May 3rd Kerry 45% Bush 43%
May 2nd Kerry 45% Bush 45%
May 1st Kerry 45% Bush 46%

That's when we'll learn if the Kerry campaign is capable of moving the numbers.

These numbers are indicative of a tie.

Someone should teach reporters about statistics.

Preferably with a crowbar.

Thank you for the clarity.

and Nader's are totally inflated. * dropped while Kerry remained steady. It's pretty much a dead heat which favors Kerry in the long run.

Fucking right wing media strikes again.

ABC seems to be fully owned by the White House lately.

Carolyn Kay from MakeThemAccountable linked to a great article in the Washington Monthly about the election.
snip
But there's another possibility, one only now being floated by a few political operatives: 2004 could be a decisive victory for Kerry. The reason to think so is historical. Elections that feature a sitting president tend to be referendums on the incumbent--and in recent elections, the incumbent has either won or lost by large electoral margins. If you look at key indicators beyond the neck-and-neck support for the two candidates in the polls--such as high turnout in the early Democratic primaries and the likelihood of a high turnout in November--it seems improbable that Bush will win big. More likely, it's going to be Kerry in a rout…

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.todd.html

There is no center anymore. There are no undecided voters. Kerry has nothing to gain by straddling the fence.

Asked me if I saw the now infamous press conference where Bush could not think of any mistakes he had made. This kid (who only JUST turned 15, btw) said how he could not believe how stupid * looked.
I am surprised that not only he was paying attention, but that he thought to tell me how he felt the whole speech was an embarrassment.

I had thought the parents were * supporters, but it is seeming like maybe they aren't anymore.:P