Yours truly was among those who believed the Foxconn deal moved Scott Walker from a slight to a solid re-election favorite. There have been multiple recent signs that internal Republican and Democratic polls show that to have been a bad call.
More such evidence comes today from Morning Consult, a national polling and research firm that issued an approval/disapproval rating report (“America’s Most and Least Popular Governors“) on Thursday for governors up for election this year.
According to Morning Consult, it:
…Conducted surveys with 253,393 registered U.S. voters from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, to determine the Q4 2017 Governor Approval Rankings. In each poll, Americans indicated whether they approve or disapprove of the job performance of their U.S. governors. For each question, they could answer strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, or don’t know / no opinion. …Morning Consult obtained population parameters for registered voters from the November 2012 Current Population Survey. We applied post-stratification weights at the state level based on gender, age, educational attainment, and race.
A summary of the report issued today includes the following:
Most of the governors running for re-election this year ended 2017 in a strong position, according to Morning Consult’s Governor Approval Rankings. …ten of the 19 governors garnered the support of a majority of their constituents.
Popular GOP governors on the ballot this year in deep-red states are also in the top 10: Kay Ivey in Alabama (64 percent approval) and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas and Greg Abbott in Texas, both with 59 percent approval.
Things look less rosy for Republican Govs. Bruce Rauner of Illinois and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who both ended 2017 underwater — Rauner by 24 points (55 percent disapprove) and Walker by 7 points (50 percent disapprove).
