From time to time as I look at President Bush's weekly approval ratings, I find myself wanting to look at the week-by-week job approval ratings of former President Nixon. They are out there and available, of course, but they're surprisingly hard to find on the web. I'm not aware of anyone who's really compiled the data for online presentation.
The best source I've found so far is the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut. They have a page with the data, but their graph quite frankly stinks. The value axis is compressed, there aren't any gridlines, and it just doesn't tell you much. So I compiled their data and made my own graphs, which I'll share with you after the jump.
First, some background and the raw data:
And now the charts. Click to pop in a new window.
- Stacked charts showing the poll results:
- Approval only for Nixon's entire presidency:
- Approval only for Nixon's second term:
- Net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) for Nixon's entire presidency:
- Net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) for Nixon's entire presidency, annotated:
- Net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) for Nixon's second term:
- Net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) for Nixon's second term, annotated:
I think there are a few very interesting points that are visible in the raw data.
First of all, Nixon started with a substantial number of "no opinion" ratings -- as high as 35%. But the ambivalence quickly disappeared. There was substantial movement from "no opinion" to "disapprove" during the first year of his Presidency. I haven't done a thorough analysis, but from the few others I've checked it looks like other presidents show the same trend in their approval. This doesn't seem to be specific to Nixon.
Second, Nixon was much more popular than Bush throughout most of his Presidency. President Bush's approval shot up after 9/11, but has steadily eroded ever since. Bush spent most of 2004 hovering under 50% approval and with a net approval of less than zero. Nixon didn't get that low until his former counsel was testifying before the special Senate Watergate panel describing the political espionage that he'd personally taken part in.
Third, to me it looks like Nixon was seen as "above the fray" at the start of Watergate. There was one bad poll in January, but the story was that everything was somebody else's fault and he didn't know about any of it. His approval rating was at an all-time high as the Watergate burglars were convicted, despite the fact that it was a fairly high profile case and some of them were former Nixon aides. It wasn't until one of the convicted former aides, James McCord, started to make allegations of obstruction of justice and point fingers higher up that things started to take a turn for the worse.
Fourth, July 1973 was an incredibly bad month for Nixon. His net approval rating dropped by a whopping 25%. At the end of June, his former counsel testified that he was involved personally in the Watergate break-in and was involved in the obstruction of justice. Then in July he refused to testify before the Watergate committee, citing executive privilege; the existence of the White House tapes was revealed; and he refused to hand over the tapes. All this contributed to a serious drop in public approval (from a net -1 to a net -26) from which he never recovered.
Fifth, even as the worst came out there was still a solid core of about 25% of the country who never abandoned Nixon and continued to approve of him.
I'm not going to provide much more analysis; I just want the data out there for people to see and discuss. Talk amongst yourselves. :-)
All in all, a very interesting set of data indeed.