More polls showing Bush’s continuing decline, though neither the CBS-New York Times poll (63%) nor the Washington Post poll (69%) has a number as low as Pew’s 60%.
I wonder how many respondents think it’s their patriotic duty to say they support the President? That wouldn’t, after all, be unreasonable. If the Bush team can convince the Iraqi military that the only choice they have is between getting rid of their own dictator or facing the U.S. military meatgrinder, we might be able to bluff him out of power, which would be a terrific result. The more support it looks as if Bush has for fighting, the more plausible such an outcome becomes.
Meanwhile, the University of Iowa’s elections “market” gives the Democrats a 45% chance of taking back the House, and the Republicans only a 20% chance of taking back the Senate. At those odds, I’d tend to bet Republican; my understanding is that taking the House back would require the Democrats to win about three-quarters of the races actually in play, which is a tough trick to pull off unless there’s a real national trend, and the Senate is such a small-numbers problem that it’s hard to see how any outcome could really be 80% likely.