Despite falling poll numbers nationally and a prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, Utahns still really like the job President Bush is doing, a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows.

And, if the election were today, the president would soundly thrash his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Utah has always been Bush country. Citizens here gave him one of his highest majorities in 2000, 67 percent of the vote.

If the election were today, Bush would get, coincidentally, 67 percent of the vote, found pollster Dan Jones & Associates in a survey conducted this past week. Kerry has only 22 percent support, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader 3 percent.

Only 5 percent of the 923 registered voters interviewed said they were undecided, said Jones, who also is a political science professor at the University of Utah.

The small undecided vote here reflects sentiments of Americans across the country.

Pollsters and political scientists say the nation is polarized. The outcome in November in most states, like in Utah, is already decided, barring some unforeseen meltdown in either man's campaign.

For example, Bush gets 94 percent of the vote of those who told Jones they are Republicans, while Kerry gets 81 percent of the vote from Utah Democrats.

CNN recently reported that the race for president will be made in 16 or 18 states, and even in those swing states around 10 percent of the voting population will push those states' Electoral College presidential votes one way or the other.

Jones found that 70 percent of Utahns strongly or somewhat approve of the job Bush is doing as president.

That's about where the president's job approval rating was in March, before the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal broke. Back then, Jones found 72 percent of Utahns approved of the job Bush was doing as president.

Nationally, Bush's job approval ratings are around 45 percent. Political scientists say when a president's approval ratings drop below 50 percent in an election year, the man is vulnerable to defeat.

Both former President Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush's approval ratings were below 50 percent when they were voted out of office in 1980 and 1992, respectively.

Gallup poll analyst David Moore was recently quoted in a Knight-Ridder article as saying all five presidents who have won re-election since 1950, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, had job approval ratings of 50 percent or higher from February on in their re-election years.

Jones found that 92 percent of those who said they are Republicans approve of the job Bush is doing, while 86 percent of Utah Democrats disapprove of the job Bush is doing.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com