Bush Post-Election Disapproval Rating At Record 76 Percent

November 11, 2008 10:06 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The first poll to survey the national sentiment about the outgoing president after the general election seems to have confirmed the claim by some pundits that President-elect Barack Obama's victory was the final verdict on President George W. Bush's tenure.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey said on Monday that Bush's disapproval rating has risen fro 71 percent in the end of October to 76 percent, or the highest disapproval rating for any U.S. president in the history of CNN and Gallup polling.

"No other president's disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said in a news release. "That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating."

Harry Truman had set the record for highest disapproval rating in 1952 at 67 percent.

Bush's approval rating is at 24 percent, nearly the same as the 23 percent he received in an ABC/Washington Post poll last month. In that previous poll, Bush's approval rating was below than Richard Nixon's and only a point away from the record made by Truman also in 1952.

Currently, 57 percent of Americans think the transfer of power from Bush to Obama will be "easy and free from tension," while 39 percent believe the transition will be difficult.

Bush has repeatedly pledged that a smooth transition is a priority of his administration's final days. Last Thursday, he spoke before White House employees assembled on the South Lawn and asked them to "stand with him at the finish line," saying the nation "expected no less" and that it is America's first wartime presidential transition in four decades.

The poll was conducted from Nov. 6-9 among 1,246 adults. Its margin of error is 3 percent.