Another poll, another round of bad numbers for Tom Corbett. The latest survey from Franklin and Marshall shows that only 26% of registered voters think the Guv is doing a good job: the lowest for a sitting governor in the history of the F&M College Poll.

2% of respondents said he’s doing an excellent job, 24% said good, 41% said he’s doing only a fair job, and 26% said he’s doing a poor job.

His problem: weak support from the GOP base. Only 41% of Republicans gave him positive marks. As did just 26% of independents and 16% of Democrats.

When responding to polls, Corbett supporters have often noted that Ed Rendell and Tom Ridge suffered similar slumps during their first terms but each won re-election with relative ease.

A graph produced by F&M (below) shows that Rendell and Ridge did indeed suffer the first term doldrums. But neither man ever saw approval numbers as low as Corbett’s today. And for Corbett to parallel Rendell, for example, he’d need to turn his numbers around starting this month. Ridge began to improve after 13 months in office; Rendell began to improve at the two year mark (where Corbett is today).

F&M didn’t ask whether respondents thought Corbett deserved a second term.

The pollster surveyed 622 registered voters from Jan. 29 to Feb. 3 (before Corbett’s budget address). They used live callers on land lines; the margin of error is plus or minus 3.9 percent. Pa. polls of registered voters – versus likely voters – tend to be slightly more favorable to Democrats.

The results are worse than a recent Quinnipiac poll, which showed voters disapproving of Corbett 42% to 36%.

But like the Q-Pac poll, the F&M numbers show Corbett with a gender gap. Men have an unfavorable opinion of Corbett 43% to 29%. Women view him unfavorably 44% to 22% – an 8 point difference.

In fact, Corbett finds little quarter in any segment of the state’s population. Only Republicans view him favorably (42% to 24%) as well as self-identified born again or fundamentalist Christians (37% to 27%). Among every other demographic shown – age, education level, income, geographic region, anything – Corbett is viewed negatively.

His best region is central Pa., where he’s just five points in the red (32% to 37%). The worst is Allegheny, where he’s under water 11% to 55%.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2013 at 9:30 am and is filed under Front Page Stories, Governor, Poll, Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.