For the full month of October, George W. Bush earned approval from 37% of the nation’s adults. Sixty-one percent (61%) disapprove. Those figures include just 16% who Strongly Approve and 43% who Strongly Disapprove (see monthly crosstabs and history).

The 37% approval is down a point from September and just two percentage points above the lowest full month average ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports for President Bush. In fact, only twice, in May and June of this year, has the President earned a lower rating.

During October, approval for the President among men dropped two percentage points, to 40%. Thirty-four percent (34%) of women voiced their approval, unchanged from a month earlier.

Support from Republicans dipped another point to 72%. Only once has support from his own party been lower. That came in June while the Senate was trying to pass a very unpopular immigration reform bill supported by the President.

During October, the President received approval from 43% of Investors and 31% of non-Investors. Forty-two percent (42%) of married Americans offer their approval along with just 28% of those who are not married.

Over the past couple of years, unhappiness with the President has caused a decline in the number of people who consider themselves Republicans. During October, the Democrats retain a 4.5 percentage point advantage over the GOP in terms of party identification. That’s unchanged from September.

The race to replace the President is starting to shift into high gear, but voters are not yet fully engaged. Barely half the nation’s likely voters knew that it was the Democrats who held a Presidential debate this past week. Despite a less than stellar performance, Senator Clinton’s national poll numbers were not immediately harmed by the debate.

Rasmussen Reports updates the President’s Job Approval on a daily basis based upon nightly telephone interviews with 500 adults. Daily results are reported on a three-day rolling average basis including interviews with 1,500 adults. Full month results are based upon interviews with 15,000 adults. In any review of Job Approval data, the trends are more important than the precise number. Many factors, especially question wording, can impact the particular approval rating percentage. See our comments on comparing data from different firms.

The Rasmussen Reports Election 2008 Presidential Tracking Poll is updated daily, Monday through Friday.

Rasmussen Reports also provides a weekly analysis of both the Republican and Democratic each Monday.

Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. Our targets are established based upon survey interviews completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews). For the month of November, the targets are 37.3% Democrat, 32.6 Republican, and 30.1% unaffiliated. For October, the targets were 36.8% Democrat, 32.1% Republican, and 31.1% Unaffiliated with Either Major Party. (see party trends analysis and history).