|
Columbus
Dispatch...
Kasich’s approval
rating 30%; he vows to turn state around
Job-approval rating at 30 percent
Thursday, March 24, 2011
By Darrel Rowland
Ohio voters aren’t finding much to like about Gov. John Kasich’s first
80 days in office.
His job-approval rating in a new Quinnipiac University poll stands at a
meager 30 percent. His disapproval has more than doubled in two months
to 46 percent.
Ohioans dislike most aspects of Kasich’s push to gut collective
bargaining for public employees. They regard the $55.5 billion budget
he rolled out last week as unfair. And voters turn thumbs down on his
plan to sell several Ohio prisons.
“Gov. Kasich obviously is proposing big changes, and it’s not hugely
surprising there’s a negative reaction,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant
director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“At least initially, voters have decided they don’t like what they’re
hearing.”
Independents now disapprove of Kasich’s performance by 49 percent to 25
percent, virtually the same breakdown as among women.
The survey is the first since Kasich unveiled his two-year budget. Just
before the spending plan became public, the Ohio Poll found that 47
percent of Ohioans (not just registered voters) disapproved of Kasich’s
performance, 40 percent approved and 13 percent said neither.
Quinnipiac’s measure for Gov. Ted Strickland four years ago was 52
percent approval, 12 percent disapproval.
New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie, who like Kasich has taken on
public-employee unions, won approval of 44 percent to 43 percent in
Quinnipiac’s June poll, taken after he took office in 2010. Last month,
those numbers had improved to 52 percent approval, 40 percent
disapproval.
Brown said Kasich might take some comfort in Christie’s turnaround,
which came in a more heavily Democratic state, and in the rebound
President Ronald Reagan made in 1984 after poor poll numbers in 1982.
“I knew all along this was going to be hard,” Kasich told The Dispatch.
“Change is very difficult. ... We’re going to get this state turned
around, and this is just part of it. People are going to find out that
the program we have is going to lead to a better tomorrow.”
Just 31 percent - primarily Republicans - say Kasich’s cuts will
improve Ohio’s economy. An additional 35 percent say the proposed
reductions will hurt the economy, and 26 percent say they won’t make
any difference.
The Connecticut university could find only one major proposal backed by
Kasich that Ohioans like: requiring public employees to pay at least 15
percent of their health-care costs. That provision is part of Senate
Bill 5, which contains the proposed collective-bargaining changes.
The findings were mixed on Kasich’s pledge to balance the budget
without raising taxes or fees. Fifty-five percent don’t think he should
have made such a pledge, and 64 percent don’t think he’ll be able to
keep it. Yet nearly two-thirds agree with his plan to balance the
budget by making only spending cuts, without tax increases.
While voters oppose the bill to slash collective bargaining for public
employees, the depth of the opposition depends on the wording of the
question.
Ohioans are against the provisions contained in Senate Bill 5 by 48
percent to 41 percent when asked about “collective bargaining” for
public employees. But when asked about “collective-bargaining rights,”
the opposition jumps to 54percent to 35 percent.
The bill has been approved 17-16 by the Ohio Senate but has been
delayed in the House over proposals to revise the measure.
The survey - of 1,384 registered Ohio voters called on land lines and
cellphones from March 15 through Monday - has a margin of sampling
error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
Respondents had the following partisan breakdown: independents, 36
percent; Democrats, 33 percent; Republicans, 24 percent; and other, 7
percent.
The poll is at www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/oh/oh03232011.doc.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
|
|
|
|
