Bush Trailing in Re-Elect Poll

LA Times -- When the poll asked registered voters whether Bush deserved reelection, 42% said yes and 46% said no, a difference within the survey's margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. When asked whether they were more likely to support Bush or the Democratic nominee in 2004, voters again lined up in almost equal camps, with the president trailing, 38% to 42%, also within the margin of error.

On one axis, voters appear to be weighing generally positive assessments of his personal characteristics — from likability and leadership to honesty — against a more ambivalent view of his policies and their impact on the country.

Along another axis, the poll indicates voters are balancing the first flickers of optimism about the economy against growing anxiety over America's progress in Iraq.

Together, these forces have left Bush in an unstable, though not precarious, position for 2004. His showing against a generic Democrat for 2004 is the same as that of his father, President George H. W. Bush, when the Times asked that question in January 1992. Ten months later, Bill Clinton ousted the elder Bush from the White House.

Single voters give the Democrat a 20-point edge, while married voters narrowly prefer Bush.

Church attendance, a critical predictor of support in 2000, remains telling: Bush leads by 13 points among voters who attend church at least once a week, while trailing narrowly among those who attend monthly, and running 15 points behind among those who rarely or never attend.

Urban voters prefer the Democrat by 2 to 1, while rural voters back Bush by more than 2 to 1.

Voters who think abortion should be illegal, gay marriage banned and gun control laws loosened all strongly prefer Bush; those on the opposite side of those issues bend even more sharply toward the Democrats.

In another measure of the evolving social structure of U.S. politics, those who drink wine with dinner prefer a Democrat over Bush for 2004 by 7 percentage points. Those who drink beer back Bush over a Democrat by 23 percentage points.

el - my new political strategy - encourage wine drinking.