Thomas Hargrove's blog

The latest polls show new downward pressure on President Bush's approval rating, pushing him into the upper 20s for the first time. The latest Gallup estimate had him with 32 percent approval, but Newsweek announced a new low at 26 percent this week.

Mark Penn, a strategist for Hillary Clinton's campaign, came out swinging against the latest Gallup poll calling it an "outlier" with other polls and "seriously flawed" for including independent voters who say they lean toward the Democratic Party.

Is it a fluke? That one time in 20 when poll results are outside the margin of error?

The Gallup organization reports that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has pulled even with presumed front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York for the Democratic presidential nomination. Gallup this week estimates Obama's support at 30 percent to Clinton's at 29 percent.

It's pretty easy to ask polling questions that highlight some fundamental differences between men and women. The latest poll by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that people generally embrace their sexual stereotypes.

People who are active in organized religion are considerably less likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories than are folks who have no religious preferences, according to the latest Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

Only 29 percent of people who've attended worship services at a church, synagogue or mosque in the previous week believe federal officials may have assisted in the 9/11 attacks or permitted them so that the United States could go to war in the Middle East. But 46 percent of people with no religious prefence entertain this theory.

Among the significant trends in the latest study of anti-government anger by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University is that racial and ethnic minorities are especially likely to suspect federal involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A survey of 1,010 adult residents of the United States conducted by telephone last month found that 67 percent of black Americans believe it is "somewhat likely" or "very likely" that "people in the federal goverment" in some way assisted in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Only 29 percent of whites believe this. Among Hispanics, about 46 percent belief in federal involvement.

A significant percentage of Americans are giving at least some credence to conspiracy theories that the federal government either deliberately allowed or even participated in the 9/11 attacks so that it could go to war in the Middle East. This, boiled down, has been the message of hundreds of conspiracy Internet sites in the United States and around the world.

The Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University has studied public anger at government and, from time to time, conspiracy theories for 12 years. The current level of anti-government feelings, spurred largely by unhappiness with the U.S. military action in Iraq, is at the highest level monitored so far.

The Gallup Polls' latest estimate of George W. Bush's presidential approval rating puts him at 31 percent -- bad but no where near the worst in history.

But Bush is getting closer to another political milestone as the president who has had the broadest range in which Americans at first approve and then broadly disapprove of his administration.

The president with the greatest range in approval is Harry S Truman, who enjoyed 84 percent approval at the close of World War II only to plunge to 23 percent after he dismissed Douglas McArthur as allied commander during the Korean War. That's a range of 64 percentage points.

Rarely have experts been more divided than the handicappers for the 2006 elections that will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Folks like Prof. Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia and Charlie Cook, who publishes a popular Washington political newsletter, agree that it's unlikely the Democrats can pick up the 15 seats they need to gain control of the House, based upon their exhaustive district-by-district reviews. This represents a micro-analysis of the race.

The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., has tracked a significant downtick in anti-gay sentiment, although a majority of Americans still oppose the notion of gay marriage.

The latest poll, based on interviews with 1,405 adults contacted March 8-12, found that 51 percent oppose legalization of same-sex marriage while 39 percent opposed it. Two years ago, when many Amerians were shocked by news footage of gay marriages in San Francisco and parts of New England, the mood was 63 percent opposed and 30 percent in favor of legally recognized gay unions.