Malloy unpopular

-Over the course of 2011 we've found that voters in a lot of states wish they could do their Gubernatorial elections from last year over again and pick someone else.  Connecticut is no exception but it does represent a twist- it's the first state where we've found serious buyer's remorse about a Democratic Governor.  52% of Connecticut voters say that if they could do it all over they'd vote for Republican Tom Foley, compared to only 41% who would stick with incumbent Dan Malloy.

That desire to elect someone else is a product of Malloy's continuing unpopularity.  Only 36% of voters approve of him to 52% disapproving.  That makes him the most unpopular Democratic Governor in the country that PPP has polled on this year. His numbers with independents are bad at a 36/55 approval spread but the biggest problem for him is the party base- even with Democrats just 49% think he's doing a good job to 37% who disapprove.  It's rare to find a major politician under 50% approval within their own party. Last year we found 20% of Democrats planning to vote for Foley the week before the election- now 28% do.  Malloy has plenty of time to get back on the right track but for now his position is pretty bad.

-Connecticut's other new statewide elected official is doing quite well though: 52% of voters approve of Richard Blumenthal to just 34% who disapprove.  He's on positive ground with independents at 45/38 and has an unusual amount of crossover popularity with 26% of Republicans approving of him.  There are 16 new Senators this year and we've polled on 10 of them.  Within that group Blumenthal is the second most popular behind only Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  Here's how they stack up:

Senator	Approval
Joe Manchin (D-WV)	+33 (59/26)
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)	+18 (52/34)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)	+7 (42/35)
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)	+6 (44/38)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)	+4 (39/35)
Mike Lee (R-UT)	+4 (35/31)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)	+1 (30/29)
Rand Paul (R-KY)	-2 (42/44)
Rob Portman (R-OH)	-5 (28/33)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)	-9 (33/42)

-Joe Lieberman appears to be enjoying something of a retirement bounce- his net approval rating has improved by 19 points since PPP last polled Connecticut in March.  39% of voters approve of him to 49% disapproving, up from a 29/58 spread on our last poll.  That still makes him the 4th most unpopular Senator we've polled on in 2011- only Ben Nelson, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain do worse- but it's an improvement from being the least popular Senator in the country, which was the designation he held previously.

Most of the improvement in Lieberman's numbers has come with Republicans.  57% of them approve of him to 30% disapproving.  He continues to have very poor numbers with Democrats (28/58) and independents (34/53).  Even if he's on the up swing it's still hard to imagine he could have been reelected at these levels.

-We also polled statewide favorabilities on the entire Congressional delegation.  Chris Murphy is the most popular at a +7 spread (35/28) in numbers we released yesterday.  The second most popular House member is Rosa DeLauro, who comes in at +4 (38/34).  Voters are pretty much evenly divided on the other three:  John Larson is +1 (22/21), as is Jim Himes (18/17), with Joe Courtney at -1 (26/27).

Full results here

Comments

[Bazinga !]

Hi

When will you poll North Dakota ?

It has the Presidential race, Governor and Senate races ... ;-)

[SteveHC]

This will change VERY quickly. CT Gov. Malloy just scored a major jobs-related "home run" with Jackson Labs deciding to build a 1.1 billion-dollar facility in CT at the University of Connecticut's Health Center in Farmington, and more successful job creation efforts will be announced over coming months. Public opinion will thus rise dramatically regarding this governor's performance.

[Dustin Ingalls]

"When will you poll North Dakota?"

As of now, ND is one of two states we can't legally poll, along with Indiana, which we may soon be able to. Otherwise, we already would have done both states at least once. They're unlikely to be competitive at the presidential level this year, particularly ND, and the Senate race leans pretty heavily GOP in ND, so we can have a pretty good guess of how those things are going anyway. But it'd be nice to see how the GOP Senate primary is going in IN.

[Bazinga !]

Mr. Ingalls

Thanks for your answer.

You said you "may soon be able to poll Indiana".

I've seen that you polled the state before the 2008 election.

Did they change the law in Indiana, so that you can poll there now?

And what exactly is the law in North Dakota ? Are automated polls not allowed there ?

[Ben Davidson]

Malloy may con an occasional business to come to CT (while he drives many others out) but anybody with a profit motive would think long and hard and then opt to build/move somewhere else. The State cannot seem to see that they are driving business out and have been for decades. Their magic solution every time a business moves out because it costs too much to operate here is to raise taxes on those remaining. That is not a viable plan for the future.