WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- Participants in a UPI-Zogby International poll gave Bush administration officials low grades in their anti-terror efforts in guarding the United States.
U.S. President George Bush, the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary all received the lowest rating available by a plurality of the 5,932 respondents to the April 13-16 poll.
Asked to rate Bush's "performance in keeping the United States safe from terrorism," 42 percent of participants chose "poor." However, the next most popular answer was "excellent" by 26.5 percent of those asked.
There was a stark political divide on the question with 75.7 percent of Democrats giving the "poor" response and 16.3 percent saying "fair." Some 55.6 percent of Republicans said "excellent" and 32.9 percent, "good."
More than half -- 55.9 percent -- of those asked rated the Homeland Security Department either "poor" (32.7 percent) or "fair" (23.2 percent) on keeping the country safe. A slight plurality (27.4 percent) chose "very unfavorable" opinion of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
The Zogby interactive poll of U.S. residents carried a margin of error of 1.3 percentage points.
