It's too early to rely on polls to predict exactly what will happen in the 2004 presidential election, but the data we do have, set in the context of recent history, provide some patterns worth watching.
First, consider job approval. President Bush has a 50% job approval rating at the moment. Gallup Poll archives since 1952, when modern polling techniques came into play, show that his rating is slightly below those of the most recent successful candidates for reelection. In March of their election years, Bill Clinton had a job approval rating of 52%, Ronald Reagan had a rating of 54% and Richard Nixon had a rating of 53%. The two other successful incumbents since 1952, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson, had even higher job approval ratings at this point in 1956 and 1964. (And the losers? Gerald Ford had a job rating of 50% in March 1976, identical to Bush's, while George H.W. Bush's and Jimmy Carter's ratings were 41% and 43% at this time in 1992 and 1980.)
History shows that the incumbent's approval rating can change substantially as the year progresses. The factor to watch is the trend: It won't be auspicious for the president should his ratings drift downward.
There are also less-than-positive signs for Bush when we look at a more direct measure: the hypothetical "trial heat" ballot pitting an incumbent against his opponent. In February and so far in March, each trial heat conducted by Gallup shows Kerry beating Bush.
Some arguments have been advanced that it is "normal" for an incumbent president to be losing to his opponent at this stage, given intense media coverage of the challengers in the primaries and the fact that the "real" campaign hasn't begun.
But the numbers show otherwise. Since 1956, of eight presidents who sought a new term, five won. Two of these eventual winners started their reelection years on somewhat shaky ground but quickly recovered. Reagan was tied with Walter Mondale in a Gallup poll survey taken in January 1984. Clinton was behind Bob Dole in two Gallup polls conducted in January 1996. But from February 1984 on, Reagan was ahead of Mondale in every trial-heat ballot that Gallup conducted. And, in similar fashion, Clinton was ahead of Dole in every trial-heat ballot Gallup did from February on in 1996.
