According to the website Morning Consult, Pat McCrory is Mr. Popularity. Their survey of North Carolina voters (part of a poll of over 75,000 voters nationally) the governor has a 51% approval rating. 36% disapprove of his performance.
While these are good numbers, McCrory is actually in the middle of the pack when it comes to how favorably governors are viewed by their constituents. Morning Consult finds that most of the public think their governors are doing just fine – just ten of them have disapproval ratings higher than their approval ratings. The most unpopular – Sam Brownback of Kansas, with a 26/65 approval spread, and Bobby Jindal, 35/60.
McCrory should be relieved that he’s not looking at those kinds of numbers. So what happened to him being the most vulnerable governor up for reelection, headed for a tough contest against Roy Cooper? If Morning Consult’s numbers are accurate, that’s probably not in the cards. If 51% approve of McCrory’s job performance, while only 36% disapprove, that doesn’t portend a Governor Cooper. For those who are thinking maybe McCrory’s job performance shot up in the wake of the Paris attacks and the controversy over Syrian refugees, nope: this survey was conducted well before that.
The problem for Governor McCrory, of course, is that this firm might be, and probably is, wrong. They certainly disagree with what other pollsters have for Governor Pat. Then again, they’ve never been in agreement on just how popular or unpopular he is. The last poll from PPP had him at 36/49 (that spells deep trouble). High Point has him at 42/45. The latest one from Civitas had him at 46/42 favorability, which is of course different than approval but not drastically so – unless there’s a significant number of people who like McCrory as a person but don’t like his policies.
What to do when there’s such disagreement? Resort to the tried-and-true “average ’em up” trick. Doing so yields an approval rating for McCrory of 44% and a disapproval rating of 43%. The one thing that all the polls agree upon? There’s still a whole lot of people who don’t know what to think about the governor and his administration.
Here’s a safe bet: McCrory, Cooper, both political parties and independent groups are going to spend a lot of money next year to help these people come to a conclusion.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
Pity Pat.
“There’s still a whole lot of people who don’t know what to think about the governor and his administration.”
Well, I am one who knows exactly what to think about the governor and his administration, and as a North Carolina registered voter who wasn’t polled by any of the three polling groups listed above, I’ll go ahead anyway and add my rating of the governor and his administration here: I vehemently disapprove of Governor McCr(ock)ory, Thom (a.k.a., “Senator Unsanitary”) Tillis (be proud, NC’ians) and their well-paid crew.
Morning Consult is the project of Michael Ramlett. Former firm was called Purple Strategies. He does work for trade associations and other business groups. Is described usually as “center-right.” In 2012 presidential election polling had average (4 polls) of 2.1 bias to Republican. Has had several post-debate polls this year which seemed to be off from other debate polling. Most recent summary of GOP presidential contest has reported for two weeks that Trump and Carson are going down.
You can quote your bogus polls until you are as red in the face as you are in your heart and it won’t change the fact that McCrory is as awful a governor as was Mike Easly – maybe even more so. Exploiting a tragedy that the US. has a culpable hand in covertly creating, with its reckless and unlawful regime change policies in sovereign countries and material support of terrorist elements in that country, does not a hero make of an unscrupulous republican governor nor do public perceptions change with the direction the wind is blowing – though I’m certain you wish they did.