Utah still the reddest red, poll finds

Bush, Cheney rate far higher than in U.S. polls

Utahns continue to stand by Republicans — with approval rating for both senators and President Bush that buck national opinion trending the opposite direction.

A new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV survey by Dan Jones & Associates, taken this past week, finds that 61 percent of Utahns approve of Bush's job performance.

Meanwhile, a new CBS News survey, also taken last week, finds that across the country only 30 percent of Americans approve of Bush's job performance.

Thirty-seven percent of Utahns disapprove of Bush's job performance, the Jones poll found, while 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president, the CBS survey found.

Utah has thought well of Bush over the years of his presidency. The state gave Bush his largest majority vote both in 2000 and in 2004. Utah is one of the most "red" states in the union; and 89 percent of Republicans here approve of Bush's job performance, while 81 percent of Utah Democrats disapprove of the president, Jones found in his new poll.

Bush started out with a 78 percent approval rating in April 2001, when he'd been in office just a few months, Jones found in a poll taken then.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001, and Utahns really rallied behind Bush after the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

In December 2001 Bush had an amazing 93 percent approval rating in Utah, Jones found at the time.

But then Bush started to slip, as he ordered a military invasion of Iraq and that war began to turn bad.

Over the next four years the president's job approval rating in Utah fell consistently. It bottomed out at 61 percent in November 2005, bumped back up to 66 percent last July, and now falls to 61 percent again in the latest survey, Jones found.

But measured against the approval ratings found in other states, Bush is doing well here. The president has never dropped below 50 percent approval, even though in some other states he falls even lower than his current national average of 30 percent.

Jones found that other statewide Utah politicians — Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both R-Utah — are also well-liked here.

Only Congress — an institution long suspect in conservative Utah — fell below 50 percent in the approval column.

Jones found that 44 percent of Utahns approve of the job Congress is doing, while 46 percent disapprove of the national legislators' actions.

Voters in November put Congress into Democratic control in 2007, the first time in 12 years. But since Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-to-1 in Utah, it's not surprising that Congress would not fare well in Utahns' minds.

Most Utahns even like Vice President Dick Cheney, a war-hawk who receives very poor job approval ratings across the nation.

Jones found that 55 percent of Utahns approve of the job Chaney is doing, while 37 percent disapprove and 8 percent didn't know.

Hatch, who in November won a record-setting sixth, six-year term, is given a 70 percent approval rating by Utahns, the new survey shows.

Bennett gets a 67 percent nod.

Hatch and Bennett now find themselves in the Senate minority and so no longer hold committee chairmanships from which they can push issues close to Utahns' hearts.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com

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