GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- A new USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Dec. 8-10, 2006, finds 38% of Americans saying they approve and 59% saying they disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling his job as president. The latest approval rating shows a recovery from the slight dip his rating took following the midterm congressional elections, but is still on par with his average 38% rating across the past 16 polls conducted since the beginning of June. During this period of time, Bush's highest rating was 44% in mid-September shortly after the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks; his lowest was 33% in November after the Democratic victories in the midterm elections. At the beginning of the year, the president's approval rating was in the low-40% range and had declined to as low as 31% in early May.
Bush's job approval rating continues to be sharply divided along political lines.
The latest poll finds that 80% of Republicans approve of the way Bush is handling the presidency, compared with 30% of independents and just 9% of Democrats. The approval rating across all three political groups is on average for the year, with an 80% average so far in 2006 for Republicans, 29% for independents, and 9% for Democrats, and there has been only modest fluctuation in Bush's rating across these three groups in recent months.
The gap between Republicans' and Democrats' ratings of Bush is currently 71 percentage points. Since Bush took office in 2001, the average gap between Republicans and Democrats has been 60 points, with a high of 83 points in the fall of Bush's re-election bid in 2004 and a low of 14 points following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
The president's approval ratings also show substantial variations by self-described political ideology, with conservatives much more positive than moderates and liberals in their assessments of Bush. The current results show that 62% of conservatives approve of Bush, while 27% of moderates and 12% of liberals feel this way. Bush's latest ratings among conservatives and liberals are quite similar to his average among these groups so far this year, at 63% and 11% respectively. Among moderates, Bush's current rating is slightly lower than his 30% average for the year.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,009 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 8-10, 2006. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.