No surprise - Rick Scott's latest public approval ratings plummet

Pollster Peter Brown quipped:


"While his approval rating is unchanged, Gov. Rick Scott's disapproval rating has jumped from 22 percent to 48 percent, perhaps not surprising given the magnitude of the changes he is proposing," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Today, Scott is a four-letter word to many Florida voters, but political popularity can change with time. The experience of Scott's predecessor, Charlie Crist, who had 70 percent approval ratings at this point in his tenure, shows how fickle public opinion can be."


"Nonetheless, the fact that Scott is as unpopular as the State Legislature, which has a 47 - 35 percent disapproval rating, is evidence of the depth of his problem. It is exceedingly rare for an unindicted governor or president to ever be seen as poorly by the electorate as his legislature or Congress," said Brown.


The poll shows solid support for Scott among Republicans (58-25 percent), but is down badly with independents (48-33 percent), and obviously Democrats, who oppose him by a 74-12 percent margin.

Two months ago Quinnipiac University released a poll on Rick Scott just weeks after he took office.  Although he had only a 35 percent approval, only 22 percent disapproved, with the vast majority (over 40 percent) saying it was too early too have much of an opinion.

Now approximately 100 days into his tenure, the public does have strong opinions about Scott - and they're mostly negative.

The new survey released Wednesday morning has Scott's approval numbers at 35 percent approval, but 48 percent disapproving.

47 percent of those surveyed believe his budget cuts go "too far," 29 percent say their "about right," and 16 percent say they don't go "far enough."

One policy shift that Scott has proposed, drug testing state employees, is a big winner with the Florida public, with a whopping 78 percent endorsing that, while only 20 percent want to go on the record as opposing it.

Two of the biggest issues that propelled liberals to get out in the streets this spring has been on education and on unions.  Voters in the poll narrowly reject Scott's plan (47-43 percent) to end the government's practice of collecting union dues from state workers - but 74 percent of voters support the provision of that bill that would require unions to get individual members' approval before using dues payments for political purposes.

On the controversial SB 736 teacher tenure and/or merit bill, 57 percent of those surveyed don't support the bill (39 percent do), while there is a 47-47 percent split on provisions that would eliminate tenure for public school teachers hired after July 1.

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