PROVIDENCE – While Gov. Gina M. Raimondo continues to have a lead in fundraising for her re-election run, according to a recent Morning Consult poll, the state’s voters are less excited about the prospect of her retaining her office.
The quarterly poll of governors’ approval ratings, based on surveys across the nation in the fourth quarter of 2017, showed Raimondo with an approval rating of 40 percent. At the same time, her disapproval rating was 47 percent. Only Ill. Gov. Bruce Rauner and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker had a greater negative gap between approval and disapproval ratings, while Wis. Gov. Scott Walker also had a seven-point difference between the two numbers.
On the other hand, Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker had a 53-point positive gap in the Bay State, with an approval rating of 69 percent and disapproval of 16 percent. In fact, Baker had the top rating of any governor and led a Republican sweep of the top 10 spots in the approval rating. At the time of the poll, the GOP controlled 33 of the nation’s 50 governorships.
The least popular governor in the nation at the end of 2017 was Chris Christie, with 76 percent of citizens of New Jersey disapproving of his performance (his approval rating was 19 percent). Conn. Gov. Dannel Malloy was right behind Christie, with a 68 percent disapproval rating.
