Minnesota Poll: 57% in state say nation is ‘off on the wrong track’

07/18/2006

Bush’s job approval rating isn’t high in Minnesota, but it’s higher than the national figures.

Eric Black, Star Tribune
Last update: July 18, 2006 – 9:53 AM

Minnesotans’ pessimism about the direction the nation is heading near record highs, yet President Bush’s job approval rating in Minnesota is slightly higher than it is nationally.

In a Minnesota Poll conducted July 6-11, 57 percent of Minnesotans said that things in the United States are “pretty seriously off on the wrong track,” compared with 34 percent who said that things are “headed in the right direction.”

That equals the lowest “right direction” sentiment the Minnesota Poll has measured over the past 10 years.

And it stands in contrast with poll respondents’ view of the direction of things in their own state. As reported Saturday, 54 percent say the state is going in the right direction while 38 percent said “wrong track.”

The pessimism about the nation’s direction seems slightly at odds with views of how Bush is handling his job.

The poll found 42 percent approve and 53 percent disapprove of the way Bush is doing his job.

While those numbers hardly constitute a glowing review, they put Minnesota in an unaccustomed position of giving Bush a slightly higher level of approval than he gets from the nation as a whole, according to some national polls.

The three most recent Bush approval poll numbers from a national sample listed on the website pollingreport.com show Bush getting a thumbs up from 40 percent (a Gallup poll from July 6-9), 36 percent (an AP Ipsos poll of July 10-12) and 36 percent (a Fox News poll of July 11-12.)

The Minnesota Poll hasn’t measured Bush’s approval rating since May 2005. The split then was an almost identical 42 percent approval versus 52 percent disapproval. Since then, national polls showed Bush’s popularity plummeting, hitting a low of 31 percent approval in a Gallup poll in May of this year. He has bounced back generally by a few points.

Bush isn’t on the ballot this year and won’t be ever again, but the mood about the nation’s direction do help set the stage for this year’s mid-term congressional elections.

Democrats are almost all running on a theme of change, seeking to capitalize on sour feelings about the status quo. That puts Republicans in a bind, since their party controls Congress and the White House. But many are responding with arguments that they, too, have ideas for change.