RALEIGH – Question: when is a 53 percent approval rating bad news?
Answer: when you are a sitting governor of North Carolina. Most of the time, people are predisposed towards favorable impressions of such officials as governors and mayors, whom they see mostly in ceremonial functions and at press conferences taking credit for things that happen on their watch. So unlike nameless and faceless legislators, state or federal, about whom many people are ambivalent or even hostile, governors and mayors tend to experience approval ratings in public opinion polls in the 60s and sometimes higher.
That’s one reason why Gov. Mike Easley’s latest approval rating of 53 percent, according to an Elon University poll released last week, can’t be considered good news. His past ratings have been much higher. And on the one issue question in which his name came up – having to do with the state budget crisis and the governor’s action to withhold tax revenues to local governments – Easley didn’t fare well.
Specifically, when asked whether they agreed or disagreed with Easley’s decision on local tax revenues, about 63 percent of respondents said they disagreed. I don’t have access to Elon’s cross-tabulations, but I would venture to guess that even most self-identified Democrats frowned on the idea.
As I’ve said before, the governor’s political mistake here was to go after some $200 million in local tax money as part of a larger effort to balance this year’s state budget, which now has a hole exceeding $1 billion. Easley turned an inside-the-Beltline story on state politics into front-page news in every paper in the state. He had alternatives, such as tapping unspent hurricane relief dollars. Now his decision is costing him.