Bush's approval ratings at low levels: poll

A latest poll published on Saturday found that US President George W. Bush's approval ratings were at low levels for an incumbent at this point in a presidential campaign, and that for the first time a majority of Americans feel the United States should have stayed out of Iraq.

The New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 48 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the job Bush is doing, against 45 percent approving, a figure that was lightly up from 41 percent ina May poll by CBS News.

Fifty-five percent of respondents disapproved of the way he is handling foreign policy, and his approval rating on foreign policy stood at 39 percent.

On Iraq, 51 percent of respondents said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 46 percent in April, May and June, and 45 percent said taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, down slightly from the past several months.

Sixty-two percent said the war was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs, a figure that has risen steadily over the past few months.

On the president's handling of Iraq, 37 percent approved and 58 percent disapproved, figures that were little changed from polls in May and June.

Forty-two percent of those surveyed approved of his handling of the economy, and 51 percent disapproved.

The poll also found that 41 percent said they strongly favored John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, up 10 percentage points from last month, and 35 percent said they had a favorable opinion and 13 percent an unfavorable opinion about his vice presidential running mate, John Edwards.

The poll, like other recent polls, found the presidential race to be close. In a head-to-head matchup, the Kerry-Edwards ticket was supported by 49 percent of registered voters, against 44 percent for a Bush-Cheney ticket. In a three-way race, Kerry would receive 45 percent of the support, compared with 42 percent for Bush and 5 percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader.

The poll of 955 adults, including 823 registered voters, was taken from Sunday through Thursday, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Source: Xinhua