The Daily Background

This just in:

Americans are giving bad grades all around. President Bush’s job approval rating now stands at 31 percent, the lowest ever in the FOX News poll, and almost twice as many Americans say they disapprove of the president’s job performance. And those harsh sentiments extend down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. Six months after the new Democratically-controlled Congress convened, the poll finds that Americans are dissatisfied with the job both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are doing.
[…]
Bush’s ratings have been in the thirties for the last several months. Since the midterm election, the president’s approval has ranged from a high of 38 percent (January and April) to a low of 33 percent in March. Today, 31 percent of Americans say they approve and 60 percent disapprove.

Declining support from key constituencies has clearly contributed to the diminishing rating. Today 61 percent of Republicans say they approve — the lowest rating ever among this group. Approval among conservatives is now at 46 percent and 42 percent among Born-Again Christians.

Wow, only 42% of evangelical Christians? And sonly 46 self-described conservatives (which make up about 70% of Republicans according to most recent polls which explore GOP demographics)?

Also worthy of note (and Drudge won’t like this part), the Fox News poll shows that more Americans opinion of Congress and Bush is about equal: 31% of Americans approve of Congress, while only 31% approve of the way Bush is handling his job.

Also of interest, though not mentioned in the article, the poll (full results PDF) found that 7% of Americans say they get at least some information about presidential candidats from YouTube. 11% say blogs are useful to them, and 4% find MySpace helpful. 38% say they use traditional internet news websites.

Update: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that the public’s approval of Congress was 36%. It is 31%, overall, however the public gives a 36% approval to Congresssional Democrats. Republicans drag down the rating, scoring a 30% approval.

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