Is President George W. Bush enjoying a "honeymoon" period in his approval ratings now that he has been re-elected?
Bush's job approval went up by five points (from 48% to 53%) between Gallup's final pre-election poll (Oct. 29-31) and our first post-election poll (Nov. 7-10). This type of post-election bounce is not unusual. The three re-elected presidents since Lyndon Johnson (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton) saw at least a modest increase after their re-elections. (Johnson, who had high ratings in 1964, experienced a slight decline.)
The track record for the extended second terms of re-elected presidents is not particularly auspicious, however. Clinton's second term was marred by the Monica Lewinsky affair, and in 1998, he became only the second president in U.S. history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. At the same time, Clinton averaged a quite high 61% job approval rating in his second term, compared with only 49.5% in his first term. This high approval rating almost certainly resulted from the booming economic times from 1997 to 2000, which obviated public concern about Clinton's personal behavior.
Reagan's second-term job approval average was 55%, higher than his first-term average of 50%. But Reagan's ratings dropped significantly in late 1986 and stayed low for the remainder of his administration as a result of the Iran-Contra affair.
Nixon was beset by escalating Watergate woes shortly after his second term began in January 1973, and by the spring and summer of that year, his job approval had plummeted into the 30% range. Nixon's first-term average was 56%, while the average for his aborted second term (he resigned in August 1974) was 34%. Nixon's final job approval rating before he left office was 24%, one of the lowest in Gallup Poll history.
Johnson's job approval rating in the 13 months of his first term (after Johnson became president upon the death of John F. Kennedy) was an extremely high 74%. After his re-election, however, Johnson became bogged down in public concern about the Vietnam War, and his second-term average dropped to just 50%, including two different points in 1968 at which his job approval was in the 30% range.
Even Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose second term was relatively controversy free, had a 60% average in his second term, compared with 70% in his first term.
Iraq is dominating the news this week. What's the latest on Iraq from the public's perspective?
Iraq continues to be a significant concern when Americans are asked to name the most important problem facing the nation today. According to Gallup's Nov. 7-10 poll, about one in four Americans (26%) think that Iraq is the most important problem facing the country, which is up slightly from recent months (although no higher than it was this past summer).
According to the Oct. 29-31 Gallup Poll conducted just before the election, the percentage of Americans saying the involvement of U.S. troops in Iraq was a mistake dropped to 44%, down from 48% earlier in the month. We don't yet have data on the public's reaction to the recent military action being taken in Fallujah.
The stock market is up significantly since Bush's re-election. Is the economic optimism generated by this uptick in the Dow percolating down to the average American?
There are clear signs that the public has become more bullish on the stock market. Fifty-five percent of Americans now say that the stock market will go up in the next six months, compared with just 19% who say it will go down. That spread between the optimists and the pessimists is as large as we have measured since last February. Last month, only 43% of Americans said the market would increase.
Are Americans optimistic about the economy more generally?
Yes, to a slight degree. Just before the election, the mood of the American public had turned sour, and considerably more Americans said that the economy was getting worse (50%) than getting better (39%).
Now, after the election, these sentiments have turned around: 49% of Americans say the economy is getting better compared with 43% who say it is getting worse. Optimism on this question is as high as it has been since July.
There hasn't been a concomitant increase in American ratings of the current economy, however. Just 36% of Americans are willing to rate the economy as excellent or good -- essentially unchanged from October, and actually a little less positive than in September and August.
Is this increased economic optimism coming mostly from Republicans who are buoyed by the re-election of their party's candidate?
Certainly, optimism about the economy is much higher among Republicans than among independents and Democrats, but the increase did not come only from Republicans. In October, 71% of Republicans said the economy was getting better, compared with 80% now (an increase of 9 percentage points). Independents went from 35% to 45% (+10 points), while Democrats went from 13% to 20% (+7 points).
Looking ahead to 2008, what do Gallup Poll data tell us about who the leading candidates are for the next election?
It looks like the early (way early!) front-runners for the 2008 presidential race are New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The data showing Sen. Clinton's preeminence at the top of the Democratic candidate list is straightforward. She is the most frequently mentioned candidate when Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are asked in an open-ended fashion whom they want to be their nominee in 2008. Twenty-five percent of Democrats name Clinton, compared with 15% who mention Sen. John Kerry, 7% who name John Edwards, 3% who mention former President Bill Clinton (who is constitutionally ineligible to run), and 3% who name newly elected Sen. Barack Obama from Illinois.
Sen. Clinton also wins when she is pitted against Edwards in a forced-choice question. Fifty-five percent of Democrats choose Clinton given this choice, compared with 39% who choose Edwards.
On the Republican side, there is no winner in response to the open-ended question asking Republicans and Republican-leaning independents whom they would like to be their party's nominee. In fact, 49% of Republicans can't name anyone they would like to be their party's nominee in 2008. Ten percent of Republicans name Giuliani, and 10% name Arizona Sen. John McCain. Seven percent name Secretary of State Colin Powell, 3% name Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and 2% name national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is constitutionally ineligible to run because he was not born in the United States).
In response to a forced-choice question among three potential Republican nominees -- McCain, Giuliani, and Jeb Bush -- Giuliani is the clear winner, with 47% of the Republican vote, followed by 27% who choose McCain and 17% who select Bush.
A Clinton-Giuliani matchup would be quite interesting, of course, because Clinton now represents New York in the Senate, and Giuliani is the former New York City mayor. It has been a long time since the two major-party's nominees came from the same state.
Is there any insight on Americans' opinions about the Middle East after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat?
We have no new data since Arafat's death, but it is clear that the person who replaces Arafat as Palestinian leader will face a tough challenge as far as American public opinion is concerned. Americans have long expressed more sympathy for the Israelis than for the Palestinians. In February of this year, 55% of Americans said they were more sympathetic to the Israelis, compared with just 18% who were more sympathetic to the Palestinians. In that same poll, three-quarters of Americans (76%) said they had an unfavorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority.
Interestingly, in a June 2002 poll, 52% of Americans thought it more important that working to establish peace in the Middle East was a higher priority for the United States than working to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
On Election Day, voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments restricting same-sex marriage in their states. Do these amendments reflect national public opinion?
Indeed, a July 2004 Gallup Poll shows only about a third of Americans -- 32% -- agree that "marriages between homosexuals should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages." Half of Americans (48%) favor a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman. About half of Americans favor a law that would allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions (49%), giving them some of the rights of married couples.
The Scott Peterson verdict was headline news last week. How are Americans reacting?
The guilty verdict in the Peterson trial did not surprise a great many Americans. Last January, a Gallup Poll found that 76% of Americans believed that the murder charges against Peterson were either definitely or probably true. Almost no one believed the charges were not true; 19% said they didn't know enough about the case to have an opinion.
That Peterson could receive the death penalty, as well as newly released Justice Department data showing that the frequency of the imposition of death sentences has dropped, has brought the debate over the death penalty back into the limelight. An article in Monday's Washington Post noted that the number of convicts in jail under sentence of death dropped to a 30-year low last year. According to the article, "The data stirred activists to speculate that support for the death penalty is dropping among jury panels, which in many states now are the only groups eligible to impose it."
U.S. support for the death penalty has drifted slowly downward since its peak in 1994, when 80% of Americans favored it. The most recent Gallup measure of support for the death penalty was taken in October 2004, when 64% said they favored "the death penalty for a person convicted of murder." Still, according to a May 2004 poll, almost half of Americans (48%) say that the death penalty is not being imposed enough, and just 23% say the death penalty is imposed too often. More than half (55%) of Americans feel the death penalty is applied fairly in this country today.
A recent Gallup analysis shows that support for the death penalty is highest among whites, men, Republicans, and conservatives. There is little difference in support for the death penalty by age or region of country.