Some individual polls, such as Gallup, have shown President Obama enjoying a smallish, 3% bounce from his State of the Union speech. However, Pollster.com's wide view of the entire polling universe shows the bounce to be even smaller--only 0.4%.
Explanatory charts and numbers in the extended entry.
We have at long last a poll from Utah clocking in at 47%! With the poll of Idaho in August, this means every single state has had a poll with approval of Bush under 50% at some point.
It's not Idaho. Idaho clocked in at 48% approval back at the end of August, and this suggests Wyoming is also below 50%. But just the other day a new survey put Utah at 58%. Oh, Utah....
Click to enlarge (left) or animate (right, 11/04-9/07, 1.4Mb; smaller version here).
Below, which states have moved left faster than the nation, a way to estimate Bush approval in any district, and Bush's bounces.
As Karl Rove prepares to ride victoriously off into the sunset, his mission accomplished, let us take a moment to survey the united landscape that he will leave behind:
Click to enlarge.
The Southeast solid blue? Who would have thought it possible? Certainly not Karl Rove. July's numbers were truly stunningly dismal for Dear Leader. The map above, when weighted by population, comes out to a national average of 30.4% approval for The Uniter, a bit above where Pollster's moving average bottomed out.
Below, a visual tour of Karl Rove's Permanent Republican Majority: approval ratings by county and congressional district, party identification, and party favorability.
(This is a really useful analysis of the real fluidity in our political system brought by Bush's unpopularity. Basically, he's turning a lot of red areas blue, and potentially putting a whole bunch of seats in play. There is a big role we could potentially have here. - promoted by Matt Stoller)
I started out my last diary two months ago stating that "Bush has been holding steady at record low approval ratings for the past four months." At the same time that I wrote those words, Bush was poised at the edge of a precipice; he took the leap and continues to plunge through the upper 20s in approval.
So let's see that new approval map for the month of June:
Click to enlarge.
As I said last time, as long as Bush remains unpopular, *there are no more safe Republican House seats.* Bush's approval ratings do matter. Below, more details on state-level approval ratings, and adding in the effect of money in House races to the relationship between Bush's approval ratings and votes for Republicans.
STATE BLOGS
