Bush Approval Falls to 33%, Congress Earns Rare Praise

This is off the Pew Research Center's website. Pew Research tags President Bush's job approval ratings down to 33 percent--a somewhat lower number than the CNN / USA Today / Gallup poll number of 36 percent on March 13 (See my post on the story here). It is a pretty long article with a large number of statistical tables, but it is especially interesting in looking at how the numbers break down. And then there is this little graph:



This graph speaks volumes on Bush's deteriorating numbers. Bush is losing support among the independents, and among his Republican supporters--with a 16 percent drop from 89 percent to 73 percent. His support among independents has dropped by around 21 percentage points. President Bush is losing support among the moderates and the moderate-to-conservatives within the electorate. These were the folks who supported the president because of his strong on terror message, and the White House campaign message that you shouldn't change presidential horses midstream in 2004. With the American public realizing that the war in Iraq has become a disaster, and that the Bush White House was responsible for creating such a disaster, the president's poll numbers are continuing to drop. If the bad news on the Iraq war continues to make front-page headlines until November, I'd say that Bush's support among the independents could drop by another 16 percentage points--perhaps equaling to the Democrats support of Bush. I'm not sure how far the Republican support for Bush can drop, until he reaches his evangelical and religious right-wing base. Any drop in Bush's core supporter base would have to be influenced by other factors, such as future revelations of the Bush White House repeatedly breaking the law in Iraq WMDs, Valerie Plame and such. For these scandals to be further exposed, the Democrats are going to need to take control of Congress, and start investigations into these White House scandals.

The midterm elections are now starting to get interesting, considering these presidential poll numbers....