Utah No. 1 in approval of Bush

State's view in sharp contrast to rest of U.S.

What do Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Texas all have in common?

They are the only states in the nation where most residents believe President Bush is doing a good job as president.

In all other states, most residents disapprove of the job Bush is doing, new polls show. And in some states, the disapproval rates are overwhelming — such as Rhode Island, where three of four residents disapprove of the president's job performance.

But in Utah, a new survey by Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV, shows that a whopping 66 percent of registered voters surveyed "strongly or somewhat" approve of the job the Republican president is doing.

Thirty-three percent disapproved of Bush. Only 1 percent of Utahns didn't have an opinion, Jones found. He surveyed 900 voters, the poll having a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent.

Utahns give Bush the highest job-approval rating of any state in the nation, a separate poll conducted a week ago by SurveyUSA found.

That poll found that across the nation, 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, while 37 percent approve — just about an even flip from Utahns' views of the president.

Why are Utahns so out of step?

Well, most Utahns just plain like Bush, according to leaders of both political parties. Utahns gave Bush the largest margins of victory of the 50 states in both 2000 and 2004.

"Bush is a deeply moral man," and that reflects well for him in Utah, a conservative, moral state, said Joe Cannon, chairman of the Utah Republican Party.

"It's partisanship, plain and simple," said Todd Taylor, executive director of the Utah Democratic Party. The fact that in Utah Bush's job approval numbers are about flip-flop from the rest of the nation's shows that "Utah is a different place, politically," Taylor said.

Even so, Bush's job approval ratings here "are way down from where they were at his re-election" in 2004, Taylor said. And Utah Democrats will try to build on that during the 2006, midterm election.

Bush will not be on the ballot in Utah, or anywhere else, perhaps, ever again. But the president can still have an impact, especially here. He will visit Utah at least once before Election Day — he's coming Aug. 30 to speak to the American Legion convention.

Utah GOP leaders will try to get Bush to appear for Republican candidates, if not during the August visit, then later, Cannon said.

"Utah is the most red (Republican) state in the nation — even more than Idaho and Wyoming" — two other states that gave Bush a positive approval rating, Cannon said.

"And we are loyal here — we like our incumbents, even (Democratic U.S. Rep.) Jim Matheson," Cannon said.

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