With President Bush’s popularity having plummeted because of the war in Iraq and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Congress beset by scandal after scandal, and public opinion polls revealing that a majority of Americans believed the country to be “on the wrong track,” Democrats expected to reap major gains in the congressional elections of 2006. They were not disappointed. Interest in the election ran high. Voter turnout in 2006 exceeded 40 percent of those eligible, the highest figure for a midterm election since 1990. In a sweeping repudiation of the administration, voters gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the Republican sweep of 1994. In January 2007, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California became the first female Speaker of the House in American history. No sooner had the votes been counted than political observers began to speculate about the presidential election of 2008—the fust time since 1952 that the major party candidates for the highest office in the land would not include a sitting president or vice president.
As the end of his second term approached, Bush’s popularity sank to historic lows. This occurred even though, in November 2008, the United States and Iraq approved an agreement providing for the withdrawal of all American troops by 2011—thus ensuring that one of the longest and most unpopular wars in American history would come to an end. By sending more troops to Iraq in 2007 (a step that Bush, mindful of memories of Vietnam, called a “surge” rather than an escalation) and by forging alliances with local tribal leaders anxious to end the bloodshed, the administration had achieved a significant decline in violence in Iraq, making American withdrawal seem possible. By the time Bush left office, more than 4,000 American soldiers had died in Iraq. But no one could predict what a postwar Iraq would look like.
In January 2009, as Bush’s presidency came to an end, only 22 percent of Americans approved of his performance in office—the lowest figure since such polls began in the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, it was difficult to think of many substantive achievements during Bushs eight years in office. His foreign policy alienated most of the world, leaving the United States militarily weakened and diplomatically isolated. Because of the tax cuts for the wealthy that he pushed through Congress during his first term, as well as the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the large budget surplus he had inherited was transformed into an immense deficit. His initiatives on immigration and Social Security reform went nowhere. The percentage of Americans living in poverty and those without health insurance rose substantially during Bushs presidency.