Ah, there’s nothing like the power of graphics to soothe my liberal soul. This one’s for all the righties who beat me over the head for weeks with the red/blue map of the Electoral College votes from the 2004 election. “See,” they’d type with glee, usually abusing punctuation along the way, “you lefties are so far out of the mainstream. The whole country is almost all red! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
So I stumble upon this website, SurveyUSA, that tracks polling data from all 50 states. They have this nifty chart showing the Net Approval Rating of President Bush, broken down by state. And for my rightie friends, it ain’t pretty.
The Red states represent the states where Bush’s Approval numbers are greater than his Disapproval numbers, giving him a positive Net Approval. Utah leads the pack at 63% Approve, 36% Disapprove, for a Net of +27%. Idaho follows at 57%/40%/+17%, then Nebraska (+13%), Mississippi* (+12%), Wyoming (+11%), Alabama (+7%), Texas (+7%), Louisiana* (+5%), North Dakota (+5%), Oklahoma (+5%), Alaska (+1%), & Montana (+1%). In all, there are twelve states where Bush’s Approval beats his Disapproval, and only the top ten of those where Bush’s Approval tops 50% (there must be some N/A’s in the polling.)
*And this is polling as of Sept. 5th, when many people were unreachable by phone in Mississippi and Louisiana, and it’s far too early to tell the effect of Bush’s slow reaction to Katrina.
The Blue states represent the places where Bush’s Disapproval beats his Approval, led by Vermont at 29% Approve, 69% Disapprove, for a Net of -40%. Thirty-eight states have a Net Disapproval of Bush, all of those states have his Disapproval at 50% or better, and 29 of those states have Net Disapproval rates in double-digits.
Best of all, when you look deeply at the tracking for those twelve remaining Red states, Bush’s Net Approval is in decline over the last month in all of them except Utah, Oklahoma, Alaska, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Only 5 Red states where Bush has gotten more popular between August and September… and two of those states have yet to be polled post-Katrina.
If I may be so bold: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
