Newsweek: "Looking for a Lifeboat"...GOP has lost more ground, Bush approval at 35%

[Human Torch]

Looking for a Lifeboat
A new NEWSWEEK poll shows that the GOP has lost more ground. Will rallying the base stem a Democratic tide?

Web Exclusive
By Marcus Mabry
Newsweek
Updated: 8:08 a.m. PT Nov 4, 2006

Nov. 4, 2006 - As President George W. Bush jets across Red State America this weekend, Republican candidates are falling further behind Democratic rivals, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll. While the GOP has lagged behind Democrats throughout the campaign season, the trend in the past month—when NEWSWEEK conducted four polls in five weeks—had suggested the Republicans were building momentum in the homestretch.

No more. The new poll finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats.

Despite round-the-clock coverage of John Kerry’s Iraq gaffe this week and non-stop rallies in which the President paints Democrats as weak-on-terror tax lovers, the political momentum has returned to the Democrats. Maybe that’s because nearly a third of registered voters (32 percent) now say Iraq is the most important issue in deciding their vote. The economy comes in second at 19 percent. And just 12 percent say terrorism, the Republican trump card in the last three elections, is their most important issue. In fact, as millions of Americans fill in their employers’ health-care selection forms for next year, terrorism is statistically tied with health care at 11 percent.

Meanwhile, the President’s approval has fallen back to 35 percent, after a slow but steady rise from 33 percent at the beginning of October to 37 percent in the NEWSWEEK poll last week.



President Bush speaks to supporters in Iowa on Friday

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15557264/site/newsweek/

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. k&r - love the looks on those kids faces on the bottom photo...

I should get a shirt that reads "I'm a weak-on-terror tax-lover and proud of it!"