Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll. In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002. Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off. The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however, Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good shape.

Only 21 percent of respondents said the overall economy was in good condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than a year. In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed the economy was in recession today.

The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year's elections, given the continued unpopularity of President Bush. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer. But Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year, also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish Congressional incumbents.

President George W. Bush's public approval rating fell to the lowest of his presidency and may be dragging down scores for Republican presidential hopefuls, according to a Newsweek poll. Bush's approval rating fell to 28 percent this week, the lowest since a similar score by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, the year of the Iran hostage crisis. The poll also found that 71 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.

Almost two-thirds of those polled, 62 percent, said that Bush's actions in Iraq showed he was "stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes," the survey said. The poll also showed that all three leading Democratic contenders beat their Republican counterparts in head-to-head competition among registered voters.

With Bush widely viewed as an ineffectual "lame duck" (by 71 percent of all Americans), over half (53 percent) of the poll's respondents now say they believe history will see him as a below-average president, up three points from last May. The first time this question was asked, in October 2003, as many people thought Bush would go down in history as an above average president as thought we would be regarded as below average (29 to 26 percent). Only 22 percent of those polled think Bush's decisions about Iraq and other major policy are influenced mainly by the facts; 67 percent say the president's decisions are influenced more by his personal beliefs.

This perhaps explains why only about half (49 percent) of adult Americans even bothered to watch or listen to any of the State of the Union speech as it happened. Of those, less than half (42 percent) think his energy, health care and other domestic policy proposals are likely to be seriously considered by the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Overall, 61 percent are unsatisfied with the way things are going in America; just 30 percent are satisfied.

President Bush’s job approval rating dipped two points in the last three weeks, despite the foiling of an airline terror plot and the adoption of a cease–fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

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The numbers continue to reflect erosion in the President’s political base – just 62% of Republicans give him positive marks for his job performance, while 38% give him negative marks. Even among weekly WalMart shoppers – a demographic group identified by Pollster John Zogby as a critical support group for Bush – just 45% now give him positive job marks, though his numbers among those shoppers have improved 10 points since early June.

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One third of respondents – 34% – said that, overall, the nation is headed in the right direction, while 59% said they think things are off on the wrong track.

Bush is named by 34 percent of voters, followed by Richard Nixon at 17 percent and Bill Clinton at 16 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Leading the list for best President since 1945 is Ronald Reagan with 28 percent, and Clinton with 25 percent.

President Bush is ranked worst by 56 percent of Democrats, 35 percent of independent voters and 7 percent of Republicans, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Best ranking for Reagan comes from 56 percent of Republicans, 7 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independent voters. Among American voters 18 - 29 years old, Clinton leads the "best" list with 40 percent.

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A total of 38 percent of voters are "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with the way things are going in the nation today, while 62 percent are "somewhat dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied," matching the previous satisfaction low point from March 2.

In an open-ended question, where respondents can give any answer, 16 percent of voters say the war in Iraq is the most important problem facing the U.S. today, down from 23 percent in March. Another 12 percent list economic issues and 11 percent list immigration, the first time this issued has hit double digits in a national poll. American voters say 56 - 39 percent that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

In the telephone survey of 1200 individuals, just 47% agreed that "the 9/11 attacks were thoroughly investigated and that any speculation about US government involvement is nonsense." Almost as many, 45%, indicated they were more likely to agree "that so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success."

The poll is the first survey that has attempted to gauge the level of Americans' doubts about 9/11 and was carried out for the "9/11: Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future" conference to be held in Chicago in June. Not surprisingly, Republicans as a group were the most supportive of existing investigations, with 70% expressing their satisfaction -- about the same percentage that has expressed approval of Bush's performance in recent polls. Sixty-four percent of those earning over $75,000 were also skeptical of doubts about 9/11. The groups most likely to want the attacks re-investigated were Hispanics at 67% and African-Americans at 64%.

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When asked specificially if they thought there had been a government coverup of evidence that contradicts the official story, the results were again not far from an even split, with 48% rejecting the idea of a deliberate coverup and 42% supporting it. Belief in a coverup was the majority position among Democrats, 18-29 year olds, and a few other groups.

In an attempt to focus more specifically on the attitudes of those who were best informed about the events of 9/11, the poll asked its responders if they were aware of WTC Building 7, whose collapse on September 11 for no obvious reason was not investigated by the 9/11 Commission. Only 52% answered that they were aware of the collapse of Building 7, but out of that subgroup, 73% believed it should have been investigated.

President Bush today said he had tried to avoid war with Iraq "diplomatically to the max." Speaking to a business group in Irvine, Ca., he admitted mistakes were made in planning for the Iraq invasion, but he defended the troop level, saying "it was the troop level necessary to do the job," and he would commit the same number if given a second chance.

The remarks came as another former general joined seven others who in recent days have called for the resignation of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, saying he had mismanaged the planning and execution of the war. Bush also explained, in unusually stark terms, how his belief in God influences his foreign policy. "I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true," he said. "One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.

"I believe liberty is universal. I believe people want to be free. And I know that democracies do not war with each other." A new CNN poll released today shows Bush with his lowest approval rating in any poll so far, at 32%.

The outcome of the 2004 United States presidential election would be different if a new ballot took place this year, according to a poll by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times. 47 per cent of respondents would vote for Democrat John Kerry, while 40 per cent would support Republican George W. Bush.

In American elections, candidates require 270 votes in the U.S. Electoral College to win the White House. In November 2004, Bush earned a second term after securing 286 electoral votes from 31 states. Kerry received 252 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia. As far as the popular vote is concerned, Bush garnered 51.03 per cent of all cast ballots, with Kerry getting 48.04 per cent.

In a January 2005 interview with NBC’s Tim Russert, Kerry expressed satisfaction with his campaign, saying, "I won the youth vote. I won the independent vote. I won the moderate vote. If you take half the people at an Ohio State football game on Saturday afternoon and they were to have voted the other way, you and I would be having a discussion today about my State of the Union speech."

On Apr. 20, Kerry discussed the possibility of a presidential bid in 2008, saying, "I will make that decision before the end of the year but I’m thinking about it hard." The Massachusetts senator jokingly added, "If you can help me find 60,000 votes in Ohio."

Polling Data:

Regardless of how you may have voted in the presidential election in November 2004, knowing what you know today, would you vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry if the presidential election was being held today?

John Kerry (D) 47%

George W. Bush (R) 40%

Someone else 6%

A new Gallup poll released today finds that most Americans are critical of President Bush's actions in the Plame/CIA leak scandal, but only one in four is following the matter closely.

Overall, 63% of Americans believe Bush did something either illegal (21%) or unethical (42%), while 28% say he did nothing wrong. While many more Democrats are critical, 3 in 10 Republicans also find that Bush did something illegal or unethical. The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than merely unethical.

The poll, conducted April 7-9, 2006, shows that just 25% of Americans are following the matter "very" closely, while another 39% are following the issue "somewhat" closely. Another 36% are not following the issue closely at all. Despite the latest turns in the CIA leak case, and news from Iraq, the president's overall approval rating did not fall still further, hanging on at 37%, which is in line with most other polls.

Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves Democrats, with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more "once the leanings of Independents are taken into account."

Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each. This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year's congressional races. The latest poll was taken from January to March 2006, with a national sample of about 1,000 adults.

Deep doubts about the Iraq war and pessimism about America's future have shattered public confidence in President George W. Bush and helped drive his approval ratings to their lowest level ever, pollsters say. As Bush launched a series of speeches to drum up support for the war, a new round of opinion polls found growing skepticism about Iraq and distrust of Bush. His image declined sharply, with one poll finding "incompetent" to be the most frequent description of his leadership.

Bush's approval rating dipped as low as 33 percent in one recent poll after a string of bad news for the White House, including uproars over a now-dead Arab port deal, a secret eavesdropping program, a series of ethics scandals involving high-profile Republicans and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. The political storm has left Bush's second-term legislative agenda in tatters, threatened Republican control of the U.S. Congress in November's elections and shredded his personal image as an effective leader.

"His strong points as a president were being seen as personally credible, as a strong leader. That has all but disappeared," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, whose latest independent poll found a dramatic decline in Bush's credibility. A majority of Americans, 56 percent, believe Bush is "out of touch," the poll found. When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response was "incompetent," followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." In February 2005, the most frequent reply was "honest." "The transformation from being seen as honest to being seen as incompetent is an extraordinary indicator of how far he has fallen," Kohut said.

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A recent CBS poll found 66 percent of the public believed the country was headed down the wrong track, while a Harris Interactive poll put the number at 60 percent. Views on Iraq and the war on terrorism were equally pessimistic, with 67 percent of respondents in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll saying Bush did not have a clear plan for handling Iraq. Independent pollster Dick Bennett of American Research Group said Bush's failure to acknowledge public anxieties added to his troubles. "The biggest problem the White House faces is reconnecting with people. People simply aren't buying it anymore," Bennett said. "People can see for themselves that things actually are not fine."

• A Zogby poll reports that 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately,
• A CBS poll puts President Bush at a 34% approval rating. The same poll reported that 70% of Americans (including 58% of Republicans) do not want U.S. ports turned over to Dubai World Ports. This poll is the one that put Dick Cheney's approval rating at a bargain basemet 18%, which surely has to be some kind of record for a sitting vice-president. Although Spiro Agnew may have given Cheney a run for his money.
• A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll puts President Bush at a 39% approval rating. 59% said President Bush can no longer manage the government effectively, which is hardly a vote of confidence. That same poll revealed that only 9% of Americans think the United States should take military action against Iran; 68% favor diplomatic and economic action to keep Iran away from atomic weapons.

Gallup said that about the same number of Americans rate Alito's selection either excellent or good (43%) as rate it fair or poor (39%). Harriet Miers initially received a very similar rating, but John Roberts' rating was more positive: 51% excellent or good, 34% fair or poor.

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--"If it becomes clear Alito would vote to reverse the abortion ruling Roe v. Wade, Americans would not want the Senate to confirm him, by 53% to 37%."

--"If most Senate Democrats oppose the nomination and decide to filibuster against Alito, 50% of Americans believe they would be justified, while 40% say they would not."

Gallup said results are based on telephone interviews with 603 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 1, 2005, with sampling error at ±4 percentage points.

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

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How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.

But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

In a September 7 article by staff writer Dan Balz, The Washington Post reported that Americans are "dividing along sharply partisan lines in their judgment" of President Bush's and the federal government's handling of Hurricane Katrina, which Balz called the "opposite" of the reaction of "national unity" Americans had to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But in concluding that assessments of the administration's performance were largely based on political affiliation, Balz relied on a flawed Post/ABC News poll and ignored other polling data suggesting that independents -- and possibly even Republicans -- are critical of Bush's response to the natural disaster.

Balz wrote that the September 2 Post/ABC News poll "illustrates the point vividly" that reactions to Bush's handling of Katrina divide along partisan lines because "[j]ust 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved." The poll also found that 48 percent of independents disapprove of Bush's response to Katrina, compared with 44 percent who approve. But as Media Matters for America has noted, the Post/ABC News poll is flawed because its sample size was small, producing an increased margin of error, and its results were also potentially skewed because it was taken on the Friday evening of a national holiday weekend, likely altering the demographics of its respondents.

This is a decline from two months ago, when the president's ratings were 45% positive and 55% negative. The war in Iraq and the economy climbed to the top of a list of issues Americans say are most important for the U.S. to address. Social Security declined sharply.

At the same time, Vice President Dick Cheney's approval ratings slipped to 35% from 38% in June, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's approval ratings dropped to 40% from 42%. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the only cabinet member whose approval ratings rose, to 57% from 52% in June.

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Americans were also asked in the poll to name the two most important issues that the U.S. government needs to address. When considering the most important issues, 41% of those polled say the war is most important, sharply higher than 24% in June. The second most important issue is the economy, the poll showed.

Only 39 percent approve of his handling of the economy.

Only 39 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy.

Only 37 percent approve of his handling of the war in Iraq.

Only 25 percent approve of his handling of Social Security.

Only the campaign against terrorism gets the approval of more than half those questioned.

The biggest drop off is among Americans aged 30 to 44. In just the past month, his approval rating in that group has fallen 14 points. In the most serious split over the president's Iraq policy, two Republican House members joined with Democrats Thursday urging President Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq in October of 2006.

[I]t is another crack in the once iron grip President Bush held over Congress. His Social Security plan is stalled, his energy bill languishing, his nominee for U.N. ambassador uncertain. And he's threatened to veto two measures passed by the Republican-controlled House -- on stem cell research and limitations to the Patriot Act.

The survey, which polled 1,005 adults from May 12-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, also has some troubling findings for President Bush. Just 20 percent of those polled say the economy has gotten better over the past 12 months, an 11- point decline since January; 51 percent believe that removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the cost and casualties of that war; and only 36 percent support Bush’s plan to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market.

Most don't support blanket approval for judges That Social Security figure, which is virtually unchanged from April, is significant because it suggests that Bush hasn’t moved the country any closer to supporting private accounts despite his months-long campaign for them.

Regarding the contentious debate over Bush’s judicial nominees, just 34 percent say the Senate should generally confirm the president’s judicial picks as long as they are honest and competent, while 56 percent argue that the Senate should make its own decision about the fitness of each nominee to serve.

Overall, according to the NBC/Journal poll, 52 percent believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, while 35 percent think it’s on the right track.

All of these findings, Hart says, are signs of an angry electorate. "If you are a member of Congress and you got the poll back, you better be looking over your shoulder," he said. "The masses are not happy."

"This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found on this measure since the question was first asked in late May 2003," the pollsters observed. "At that time, 31% said the administration deliberately misled Americans. This sentiment has gradually increased over time, to 39% in July 2003, 43% in January/February 2004, and 47% in October 2004."

Also, according to the latest poll, more than half of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while 43% approve. In early February, Americans were more evenly divided on the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq, with 50% approving and 48% disapproving. Last week Gallup reported that 53% now believe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was "not worth it."