Ipsos-Reid/Cook Political Report: Two-in-Three Voters Continue to Approve of Bush's Job Performance

Between November 19 and December 10, 2002, Ipsos-Reid US Public Affairs interviewed for Cook Political Report a representative sample of 2,012 adults nationwide, including 1,583 registered voters. The margin of error for the combined surveys is +/- 2.2% for all adults, +/- 2.5% for registered voters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the second half of President George W. Bush's term in office gets underway, the Republican President continues to enjoy remarkably stable, high approval ratings.

In looking across all regions and population subgroups in the post-election surveys, it is difficult to find any place or any group of voters among whom a majority disapproves of Bush's overall performance. That absence of focused opposition bodes well for Bush reelection prospects--he is getting an excellent performance review.

One division: Men are strongly supportive of Bush's performance across the board. Among women, however, being unmarried or being a single mom is associated with much higher political disapproval of Bush than what is found among married women.

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?

Since Election Day, Bush has focused on getting his economic policy house in order, but the poll indicates this may cover only half the issues he faces. Overall, slim majorities of registered voters endorse Bush's handling of both the economy and other domestic issues. What's interesting is that on these political questions of Bush's performance, the marriage gap is bigger than the gender gap.

On Bush's handling of the economy and other domestic issues, the big divisions are not between men and women so much as they are between married men and unmarried men, and between married women and unmarried women. In other words, married women look like married men in their strong approval of Bush's performance, while unmarried men join unmarried women in being evenly divided between disapproval and approval.

Single moms in particular are moving away from endorsement of Bush policies when it comes to the economy and other domestic issues--look how different they are than married women in their political assessments of Bush's performance.

And when it comes to handling domestic issues like health care, education, the environment and energy, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W Bush is handling that issue?

And when it comes to handling the economy, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W Bush is handling that issue?

When the focus moves beyond Bush's performance to an overall assessment of the country's overall direction, the question Charlie Cook likes to call the "Dow Jones of politics"--the one number that predicts, reflects and drives all other numbers--the pattern is very different. Here, there is a significant gender gap found among registered voters--among men, 52% say things are heading in the right direction, 41% wrong track, but among women, 41% say things are heading in the right direction, 50% wrong track..

Why? Because when it comes to this critical measure of attitudes about "how things are going," married women look like unmarried men. As a result, on this question, the gender gap is as important as the marriage gap.

Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?

On Election Day, November 5, Republicans benefited from a final week shift in favor of Republican control of Congress. Among the group Ipsos/Cook identified as the most likely to vote, preference was evenly divided as late as the week before Election Day, then shifted decisively in favor of Republican control, 51% Republican-44% Democratic control, in interviews conducted over the final weekend leading into Election Day.

The lesson from Election Day is that the biggest and most important movements occurred more than a year before on September 11, 2001--and the second biggest and most important movement did not occur until 100 hours before Election Day. But that doesn't mean political analysts can safely ignore the polls on the 2004 election until 100 hours before the 2004 election!

And if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress?

Looking ahead, the big question is whether the marriage gap will continue to drive political attitudes as they do now, or whether the gender gap will become an increasingly important factor in political attitudes. The familiar gender gap already has an impact on assessment of direction of the country, but does not yet have an impact on assessment of Bush and his performance.

For more information on this release, please contact: Thomas Riehle President Ipsos-Reid US Public Affairs 202.463.7300