The Harris Poll^® #72, September 22, 2006

U.S. Adults Attitudes on Iraq Highly Polarized by Political Party

Independents’ attitudes are closer to Democrats, which could hurt Republicans in November

A majority of U.S. adults remain very pessimistic about the situation in Iraq and are not confident that American policies there will be successful. A three-to-one majority (61% to 20%) continue to say that they are not confident that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful, as has been the case for over a year. President Bush’s job rating on his handling of the situation in Iraq remains two-to-one negative (64% to 32%), a trend that has been occurring since July 2005; however, this current rating is slightly better than his ratings in March and May, when fully 68 percent rated his handling negatively.

These are some of the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,747 adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive^® between September 7 and 13, 2006.

Other key findings in this poll include:

A modest 44 percent to 39 percent plurality continues to think that it was "the wrong thing" to take military action against Iraq. However, a substantial 17 percent are not sure about whether it was right or wrong.
A 45 percent plurality think that the situation for U.S. troops in Iraq is getting worse, virtually unchanged from the 46 percent and 43 percent who felt this way in March and May. Thirty one percent say that there is no real change in the situation for troops, while only 17 percent believe that the situation is getting better.
A slender 53 percent majority think that Iraq will have a civil war in the next six months. A third of all adults (34%) think this is only somewhat likely or not at all likely.

Polarization by party

Attitudes to Iraq and replies to all these questions are highly polarized by political party, with Republicans being more likely to support the war and its outcome and giving President Bush far higher ratings. On the whole, the attitudes of Independent voters are closer to those of the Democrats, which explains why the overall numbers above are so bad for the Republicans.

Some of the biggest differences are:

Fully 70 percent of Republicans but only nine percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Independents give President Bush a positive rating for his handling of Iraq. Nevertheless, there has been a steady decline in the support of the President on this issue by members of his own party, with 82 percent of Republicans giving him a positive rating in September 2003, 79 percent in September 2004 and 74 percent in 2005.
Most Republicans (76%) think that taking military action against Iraq was the right thing to do, compared to only 15 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of Independents.
A majority of Democrats (65%) and a plurality of Independents (47%) think that the situation for U.S. troops in Iraq is getting worse. Only 21 percent of Republicans agree with them.
Republicans are almost seven times more likely than Democrats to feel confident that U.S. policies in Iraq will succeed (45% compared to 6%), and only 14 percent of Independents are confident.
A majority of Democrats (68%) and Independents (58%) think that it is likely that there will be a civil war in Iraq in the next six months. Only 34 percent of Republicans think the same.

Democratic candidates and strategists who look at these numbers have every reason to make Iraq a major issue in the November election. Republicans have every reason to try and prevent this by playing up other issues and in particular the war on terror.

TABLE 1

RATING OF PRESIDENT BUSH – HANDLING OF IRAQ

"Overall, how would you rate the job President Bush has done in handling the issue of Iraq

over the last several months?"

Base: All Adults

	2003						2004
	March	April	May	July	Sept	Nov	Jan	March	April	May	June	July	Sept	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Positive (NET)	56	67	63	49	47	41	51	49	43	42	41	39	41	42
Excellent	29	38	34	21	16	15	20	18	15	13	13	15	14	12
Pretty good	27	29	28	29	31	26	31	31	29	29	27	24	27	30
Negative (NET)	43	32	36	50	51	58	46	49	55	56	58	58	58	57
Only fair	16	15	18	22	19	19	20	19	18	18	19	17	17	19
Poor	27	17	18	28	32	38	26	30	37	39	39	40	41	37
Not sure	1	1	1	1	2	1	2	2	2	2	1	3	2	2

	2005							2006
	Jan	March	May	July	Sept	Oct	Dec	Jan	March	May	Sept.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Positive (NET)	39	42	37	34	34	32	29	36	30	29	32
Excellent	13	18	13	11	10	11	9	12	8	9	9
Pretty good	26	24	24	23	24	21	20	25	21	20	23
Negative (NET)	59	56	61	64	65	66	68	61	68	68	64
Only fair	17	20	19	20	18	16	17	20	20	21	22
Poor	42	36	42	44	46	50	52	41	48	47	42
Not sure	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	3	3	4

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

TABLE 2

CONFIDENCE THAT U.S. POLICIES ON IRAQ WILL BE SUCCESSFUL

"How confident are you that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful?"

Base: All Adults

	2003		2004
	Sept	Nov	Jan	Feb	March	April	May	June	July	Sept	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Confident	27	25	31	31	31	26	25	25	26	29	29
Not confident	46	51	45	48	46	52	55	53	51	54	51
Not sure	27	24	24	22	22	22	20	22	23	18	20

	2005							2006
	Jan	March	May	July	Sept	Oct	Dec	Jan	March	May	Sept.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Confident	25	30	26	23	23	24	22	26	20	22	20
Not confident	56	49	54	59	59	61	62	55	61	61	61
Not sure	19	21	20	19	18	15	16	20	20	18	19

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

TABLE 3

MILITARY ACTION – RIGHT OR WRONG THING TO DO

"Thinking about everything that has happened, do you think that taking military action against Iraq was

the right or wrong thing to do?"

Base: All Adults

	2003		2004
	Sept	Nov	Jan	Feb	March	April	May	June	July	Sept	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Right thing	55	49	55	52	51	49	47	44	43	43	43
Wrong thing	32	37	31	34	33	37	38	42	42	43	43
Not sure	13	13	15	14	16	14	14	14	15	13	14

	2005							2006
	Jan	March	May	July	Sept	Oct	Dec	Jan	March	May	Sept.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Right thing	39	41	39	38	37	34	35	40	37	38	39
Wrong thing	46	45	48	49	49	53	53	46	48	47	44
Not sure	15	15	13	14	14	13	12	13	15	15	17

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

TABLE 4

SITUATION FOR U.S. TROOPS – GETTING BETTER OR WORSE

"Do you think that the situation for U.S. troops in Iraq is…?"

Base: All Adults

	2004
	Jan	Feb	March	April	May	June	July	Sept	Dec
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Getting better	24	22	24	9	11	19	18	15	18
Getting worse	36	38	38	64	65	49	45	54	50
No real change	31	31	30	20	19	26	30	26	25
Not sure	8	9	8	6	5	6	7	6	6

	2005							2006
	Jan	March	May	July	Sept	Oct	Dec	Jan	March	May	Sept.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Getting better	13	21	21	17	19	19	20	22	17	20	17
Getting worse	53	41	39	44	43	44	43	36	46	43	45
No real change	28	33	34	35	33	33	32	35	32	31	31
Not sure	6	6	6	4	5	4	5	7	6	5	7

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

TABLE 5

LIKELIHOOD OF IRAQI CIVIL WAR IN SIX MONTHS

"Given the recent events in Iraq, how likely do you think Iraq will have a civil war in the next six months?

Base: All Adults

	March	May	Sept.
	%	%	%
Extremely/Very Likely/Likely (Net)	51	48	53
Extremely Likely	16	13	16
Very Likely	15	15	17
Likely	21	19	20
Somewhat/Not At All Likely (Net)	38	40	34
Somewhat Likely	31	29	28
Not At All Likely	7	10	6
Not sure	11	13	12

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

TABLE 6

POLARIZATION BY PARTY

Base: All Adults

	Republican	Democrat	Independent
	%	%	%
Positive (excellent/pretty good) Job rating for President Bush on handling Iraq	70	9	26
Taking military action against Iraq was right thing to do	76	15	37
Situation for U.S. Troops in Iraq is getting worse	21	65	47
Confident U.S. policies in Iraq will succeed	45	6	14
Civil war in Iraq in next six months is likely	34	68	58

TABLE 7

POLARIZATION BY PARTY SINCE SEPTEMBER 2003

Positive (excellent/pretty good) Job rating for President Bush on handling Iraq

Base: All Adults

		September 2003	September 2004	September 2005	September 2006
Republican	%	82	79	74	70
Democrat	%	21	10	6	9
Independent	%	40	30	27	26

Methodology

The Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between September 7 and 13, 2006 among 2,747 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

All surveys are subject to several sources of error. These include: sampling error (because only a sample of a population is interviewed); measurement error due to question wording and/or question order, deliberately or unintentionally inaccurate responses, nonresponse (including refusals), interviewer effects (when live interviewers are used) and weighting.

With one exception (sampling error) the magnitude of the errors that result cannot be estimated. There is, therefore, no way to calculate a finite "margin of error" for any survey and the use of these words should be avoided.

With pure probability samples, with 100 percent response rates, it is possible to calculate the probability that the sampling error (but not other sources of error) is not greater than some number. With a pure probability sample of 2,747 adults one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 2 percentage points. However that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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