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The Columbus Dispatch
Poll:
Kasich’s approval rating takes a
dive
By Darrel Rowland
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Despite
signing a historic budget,
Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating took a dive among Ohio voters, a new
poll released
today shows.
Exactly
half of Ohioans disapprove of
the Republican governor’s performance, while 35 percent approve, the
Quinnipiac
Poll says. Two months ago it was 49 percent disapproving and 38 percent
approving.
And
the push to repeal Senate Bill 5,
supported strongly by Kasich and most legislative Republicans, grew
stronger.
Right now the repeal effort would win by 24 points; in May it was up by
18.
“Gov.
John Kasich is sinking lower in
the eyes of Ohio voters, dropping from an 11-point approval deficit two
months
ago to a 15-point deficit today,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant
director of
the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement.
“Kasich
has until 2014 when he
presumably will face the voters, to turn his political fortunes around,
but the
timeline for the vote on SB 5, which is obviously a referendum on the
governor’s agenda, is much shorter,” said Brown. “A loss on SB 5 would
be a no
confidence vote on the governor from the voters of Ohio.”
Overcoming
what was once an estimated
$8 billion shortfall to pass a budget that did not raise state taxes
didn’t win
Kasich many friends, the survey found.
“Even
after the state budget has been
approved as he promised without raising taxes, and even though the
Quinnipiac
University poll finds that 63 percent say they favor such an approach,
Gov.
Kasich’s name remains mud in the eyes of the Ohio electorate.
“Voters
may say 2-1 they wanted him to
balance the budget just through spending cuts rather than with a
combination of
spending cuts and tax increases, but they don’t like the cuts that he
and the
legislature approved. By 50 32 percent, voters say the budget is unfair
to
people like them. When voters think a politician is treating them
unfairly,
that’s not good for the politician’s political health.”
The
poll does have two bright spots
for the GOP.
Ohioans
narrowly support a possible
November ballot issue that seeks to overturn in Ohio the section of the
new
federal health care law that would require nearly all Americans to have
health
insurance or pay a fine.
Voters
back that repeal proposal by 48
percent to 45 percent, the survey said. Elections officials currently
are
toting up signatures to see if that measure qualifies for the ballot;
some
legal experts question the impact of such a proposal even if approved.
And
Ohioans, like respondents in most
polls, back legislation that would require voters to show a photo ID
before
casting a ballot. Though Democratic lawmakers strongly oppose the bill,
two
thirds of the Democrats in the poll support it.
The
poll of 1,659 registered Ohio
voters by land telephone lines and cell phone from July 12 through
Monday has a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
The
full poll is at www.quinnipiac.edu/x1322.xml?ReleaseID=1625
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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