WizardOfAz

Only 34% in Ariz. back re-election of Bush, poll says

Jon Kamman
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 26, 2003

Polls show Bush support leveling off in Arizona

Barely one-third of Arizona voters say they would give President Bush a second term, according to a statewide poll released Thursday.

The 34 percent support for his re-election, with 44 percent preferring someone else and 22 percent undecided, reflects a dramatic plunge in popularity for Bush. In 2000, he beat Al Gore in Arizona by a margin of 6 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 votes of 1.5 million cast.

State Democratic Chairman Jim Pederson said the poll results are evidence that Arizonans are "increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's performance on both the foreign and domestic fronts."

But Bob Fannin, state Republican chairman, said Bush enjoyed unsustainably high ratings earlier this year, and party leaders had predicted a decline. The drop fits a pattern seen at this point in the first terms of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, he said.

Fannin also dismissed the poll results as an abstraction, because the election is more than 13 months away and no opponent has been chosen.

Both parties' interpretations are valid, said Bruce Merrill, the Arizona State University journalism professor who conducted the poll for Channel 8 (KAET-TV) and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"Polls measure opinions at a particular point in time," he said, "and things can change virtually instantly."

Still, the results show that "in the short term, he (Bush) is in a difficult situation, and parallels with his father are real." After the 1991 Gulf War, the elder Bush's ratings soared, but an eroding economy led to his defeat in 1992.

The poll also found that slightly more than half (52 percent) of respondents opposed providing $87 billion, as Bush has requested, for continued military presence and reconstruction in Iraq.

Forty-two percent supported the request, and 6 percent were undecided.

A total of 390 registered voters were surveyed statewide. Results have a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Merrill said polls in Arizona often turn out to be within 2 or 3 percentage points of findings in nationwide polls.



http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...sh-poll26.html

schutd

I alos think that the majority who said they would prefer someone else, dont consider that there wont be a republican someone else, and so they will vote Bush, just becasue they dont think a Democratic candidate is the bes option, so those numbers arent as accurate as Id like them to be.

mattyboy

what kind of moron actually thinks that another republican candidate will emerge to battle the incumbent president for the republican nomination?

schutd

No one I would bet. But this poll didnt ask if people would vote for a Dempocat over Bush, merely if they would prefer someone else. So its not indicative of how the vote will go in AZ. Thats my point.

Brian in Mesa

Yeah, basically most of the newscasters reporting the story said "the numbers mean...absolutely nothing." There's a 5% margin of error, it was a poll of a whopping 390 people TOTAL, which questions were or were not asked, etc. And even if it was a remotely accurate poll, incumbent President's numbers are often down during the second part of their term...it didn't stop Clinton or Reagan get re-elected. Those are just a few things brought up by the newscasters, like Kent Dana.

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SirStefan32

May I just add that Bush hasn't really started campaigning yet. As long as his numbers are between 35 and 45% he'll be fine.

Having said that, there are at least 10 Republicans I would rather have in the White House than Bush, but compared to Dean, Kerry, Clark, and other D's, Bush is a Messiah.

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Dback Jon

What do you mean - he has never STOPPED campaigning, since the day he was appointed.

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