Poll Finds Bush’s Approval Rating at 39% : Public: Times Mirror survey says the figure slipped 7 points since January. It also found an unnamed Democrat would beat him by 48% to 40%.

A new nationwide poll contains mostly bad news for President Bush, reflecting an anemic 39% approval rating, a re-emerging gender gap and erosion of support among younger and more affluent voters.

An unnamed Democratic nominee would defeat Bush today by a statistically significant 48% of the vote to 40%, according to the survey. And, underscoring what looms as a major campaign issue, the survey disclosed that 80% of Americans believe “it’s really true the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer.”

The good news for Bush is that voters still support him for the Republican nomination over conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan by 77% to 18%, and that there is little enthusiasm for any of the declared Democratic candidates.

The poll, conducted Feb. 20-23 by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, showed that people who get their political news solely from television were more likely to favor Bush, while those who get their news from both television and the print media or solely the print media were more likely to support a Democrat.

Times Mirror Co. is the owner of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper, broadcasting and publishing enterprises.

Although the campaign is in its early stages, most Americans already believe the news media are exerting excessive influence in candidate selection, said Donald S. Kellerman, director of the center. Although figures on that issue are not yet ready for release, the poll indicates that voters are as upset with the media now as they were at the height of the 1988 presidential campaign.

Bush’s approval rating, which slipped 7 points from 46% in January, has now declined in seven consecutive Times Mirror polls since March, 1991. As recently as November, 1991, he still enjoyed a 71% favorable rating.

Women and men supported the President in almost equal numbers in January, but the latest poll shows that women now would support a Democrat over Bush, 51% to 37%. His support among voters with incomes of more than $50,000 also dropped dramatically. Last month they supported him over an unnamed Democrat, 56% to 33%; in the latest poll it’s virtually even, 45% to 44%.

Among voters under 50 years of age, he held a narrow lead last month and now trails narrowly.

Despite Bush’s problems, the survey showed that voters in all demographic and political groups believe the President ultimately will be reelected over a Democratic challenger. Even among Democrats, 53% believe he will be reelected.

Buchanan, a former White House aide in the Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations, runs behind Bush by huge margins in every section of the country. Despite criticism that he is an extremist who has made racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic comments, Buchanan’s favorable ratings have increased in six weeks from 33% to 56%. His unfavorable ratings have remained unchanged at 30%.

The President had an even higher unfavorable rating--34%--but 64% of the respondents had a favorable opinion of him.

In the Democratic race, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, with 32%, and former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts, with 27%, were the front-runners. Clinton led in the South by 48% to 17%, Tsongas in the West by 37% to 22%. In the East and Midwest, they were virtually tied.

The major difference between them is that, although relatively few voters have developed an unfavorable opinion of Tsongas, Clinton’s unfavorable rating shot up from 15% in January to 31% in the latest poll. The media battering Clinton has absorbed over his Vietnam-era draft status and a tabloid’s unsubstantiated report of marital infidelity clearly has taken a toll on him.

The national survey, taken before Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s South Dakota primary victory, showed him in fourth place with 7%. Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. was third with 11% and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was fifth with 6%. The poll of 1,227 voting-age citizens has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Although Americans view the Democratic candidates somewhat more positively than they did a few months ago, only 3% rate them as excellent and 31% as good. Fifty-one percent regard them as fair and 9% as poor.

Nor was there any enthusiasm for several prominent Democrats who have been mentioned as possible candidates but have chosen not to run. When asked about New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Sens. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, a majority rated all of them as fair or poor.