Bush rating at Nixon-level low

2007-01-23 17:15

Washington - US President George W Bush is more unpopular than any US president since Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in 1974, according to several polls out Tuesday.

A CBS News poll has Bush's overall popularity at just 28% - a record low - with 64% those polled disapproving his performance.

An ABC-Washington Post poll released late on Monday on the eve of the president's annual speech, shows a 33% approval rating, matching Bush's lowest ratings in May 2006.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll pegged Bush's approval rate at 35%, his lowest rating on the joint survey.

According to the poll, 67% disapprove of his handling of the Iraq situation.

The poll was conducted among 1 007 adults between January 17-20, and has a 3.1% margin of error.

According to the Post, the last two presidents to deliver a state of the union address with lower poll numbers were Nixon in 1974 - when the Watergate political scandal ended his presidency - and Harry Truman during the Korean War in 1952.

In the ABC-Washington Post poll, 71% said that the country was seriously heading in the wrong direction - the highest rating of national pessimism in more than a decade, according to the Post.

A majority - 51% - expressed strong disapproval of Bush's performance, against 17% who strongly approved.

The Washington Post-ABC News telephone poll was conducted January 16-19 2007, among a random national sample of 1 000 adults, and the results have a three-point error margin.

In the CBS News poll, 29% of those surveyed thought that more US troops should be sent to Iraq, and only 28% said that Bush shared their priorities.

The telephone poll was conducted among 1 168 adults between January 18-21, and has a plus or minus three point margin of error.

- AFP