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October 5, 2006
Scandal and Revelations Damage Bush and Republicans
By Mark Schulman
Less than five weeks before mid-term elections, a barrage of bad news the Congressional page scandal, the leaked National Intelligence Estimate, and several high profile books critical of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war -- has damaged Bush's approval rating and widened Democratic margins in the Congressional generic vote, according the latest Time Poll.
- Bush's approval rating has now slipped to 36% approve 57% disapprove.
- Congressional Republicans have taken a hit in the generic Congressional vote. Democrats have widened their lead over Republicans to 15 points (54% Democrat 39% Republican, including leaners) among registered voters, up from 11 points in late August.
Congressional Page Scandal Takes Toll
Still breaking news about former Congressman Mark Foley's sexually
explicit emails to teenage Congressional pages has clearly hurt Republican chances of retaining
Congressional control. Almost 4 in 5 (78%) of Americans have heard or read about the scandal.
Fallout from those who have heard about the Foley scandal includes:
- 64% say Republican leaders tried to cover up the Foley scandal, while only 16% say the Republican leadership handled it properly.
- 39% say that Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign over his handling of the situation, while another 38% say he should not resign.
- 25% say they are less likely to vote for the Republican candidate in their district because of the scandal.
Continued Erosion from Iraq War
Support for the Iraq war continues to drop. The Time Poll finds that only
38% now say that the United States was right to go to war with Iraq, down 4 points from late
June. A majority, 53%, say the United States was wrong. Among other findings:
- Only 37% now hold out hope that the new Iraqi government will be able to build a reasonably stable democracy, down 12 points from March 2006. A large majority, 59%, say building a stable democracy there is "not very" or "not at all likely."
- Almost 2 in 3 Americans (65%) now disapprove of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, while only 31% approve down slightly from August's 34% approve.
- A majority, 54%, how say that President Bush "deliberately misled" Americans to build his case for war, up from 48% in late 2005.
Methodology
This Time Magazine poll was conducted by telephone between October 3-4, 2006 among a national random sample of 1,002 adults, age 18 and older throughout America. The data have been weighted to reflect the demographic composition of adult Americans.
The margin of error for the entire sample is approximately +/- 3 percentage points. The margin of error is higher for subgroups. Surveys are subject to other error sources as well, including sampling coverage error, recording error, and respondent error.
The Poll's partisan breakdown is as follows:
35% Democrat
27% Republican
29% Independent
Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs designed the survey and conducted all interviewing. The full Time questionnaire and trend data may be found in the related link below.
Related Link
