PPP Poll Says Malloy Is “One Of The Most Unpopular Governors In The Country”

A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows that “Dan Malloy continues to be one of the most unpopular governors in the country,” the poll director said.

PPP has been criticized by Republicans as a Democratic poll, but the poll has shown varying results for politicians of all stripes.

The poll in Connecticut showed 32 percent of voters approving of Malloy and 51 percent disapproving, according to Tom Jensen, the poll director.

“Even among Democrats, he has just a 49/34 approval rating,” Jensen said of Malloy on Thursday. “The 2014 race for governor could be very competitive. Right now, Malloy trails a generic Republican opponent by a 42-38 margin.”

Malloy’s senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, said Thursday that his comment would be the same as it has recently been.

“We have tried to be consistent in not saying much about polls because … what’s there to say?” Occhiogrosso asked Thursday. “Polls come and go, numbers go up and down. The governor always does what he thinks is best for the state and the right thing to do.”

Regarding the national races, Jensen said that President Obama will win the election in the Nutmeg State.

“Barack Obama doesn’t need to worry about losing Connecticut this fall, but it definitely continues to be one of the states where he’s fallen the furthest,” he said. “Our new poll there finds him leading Mitt Romney 54-41. That’s up from him having only an 8 point advantage when we polled the state in July, but it’s down a good deal from his 23 point margin of victory there in 2008.”

He added, “Obama’s actually losing independents 50-43 to Romney [in Connecticut]. But there are far more Democrats in the state than Republicans, and Obama’s winning 20 percent of the Republican vote on top of that, more than we’ve found for him in just about any state. Obama’s approval rating in Connecticut is over 50 percent, at 52/44. Meanwhile, voters there aren’t particularly warm to Romney with 41 pecent rating him favorably while 53 percent hold a negative opinion. Obama has the edge over Romney both on who voters trust more about the economy (51-43) and foreign policy (54-40). Obama won’t match the size of his victory last time in the state, but he’s still pretty safe.”

The poll of 801 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.