US President George W. Bush's approval rating is 48 percent, the lowest in three years, and 50 percent don't want him to be re-elected in November, a Newsweek poll said.
The nationwide poll of 1,004 adults taken Feb. 5-6 showed that 45 percent said they would like to see Bush re-elected. Bush's job approval was 49 percent in last week's poll, and 50 percent the week before.
This week's rating was the lowest since February 2001, a month after Bush took office. The survey has a 3 percentage-point error margin.
Democratic front-runner John Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, would win the election over Bush if the contest were held today, with 50 percent of voters supporting Kerry, the poll found. About 45 percent said they would vote for Bush.
Bush would beat Kerry's Democratic rivals, the survey found.
The poll showed Bush leads North Carolina Senator John Edwards by 49 percent to 44 percent, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean by 50 percent to 44 percent and retired General Wesley Clark by 51 percent to 43 percent.
Another survey showed Bush's decline in public opinion started after David Kay, who quit last month as leader of the search for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, said he didn't believe the Middle Eastern country had any of the banned weapons, the Associated Press reported.
The National Annenberg Election Survey found Bush's approval rating fell 10 points from Jan. 25-31, to 54 percent from 64 percent. The tracking poll of 1,032 adults takes a nightly sample and rolls together two or three nights' findings at a time. It has a 3 percentage-point error margin.
Public support for Bush declined 9 percentage points over the last month, according to an AP-Ipsos poll of US adults released yesterday.
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
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