26 Percent

Newsweek wonders about President Bush, "How Low Can He Go?"

In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush’s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.

The new numbers—a 2 point drop from the last NEWSWEEK Poll at the beginning of May—are statistically unchanged, given the poll’s 4 point margin of error. But the 26 percent rating puts Bush lower than Jimmy Carter, who sunk to his nadir of 28 percent in a Gallup poll in June 1979. In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in.

For all intents and purposes, a Twenty-six percent approval rating with a four percent margin of error breaks through the psychological barrier of 25 percent that the conventional wisdom has always held as impossible. This means that Bush has begun to lose even the hard-core authoritarian followers that have provided him with the protective margin keeping him at or near 30 percent, give or take.

The poll doesn't give a partisan breakdown on this question, but Bush's approval rating on immigration is only 26 percent, with 63 percent disapproval. I think it is reasonable to assume this is where his bedrock support among Republicans (60 percent approval, 31 percent disapproval) has developed its widest cracks.

And I wonder when the Democrats in congress will decide that Bush is actually weak enough for them to challenge on Iraq. As it stands...

A record 73 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush has done handling Iraq.

If they can't summon the courage or the will to hold him accountable on the occupation, they could see their own ratings drop below the anemic 25 percent approval they enjoy on their own job performance.