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Quinnipiac Poll: Corbett’s Numbers Slightly Better, But Still Down

Although his approval has shown a slight improvement over previous polls, Gov. Tom Corbett is still getting a net negative review from voters, with a Quinnipiac poll released today showing that PA voters disapprove of the job he is doing 45 percent to 38 percent.

Previous Quinnipiac polls have shown slightly worse numbers.

A Q-Pac poll from June 27th had his approval rating at 50 percent negative and 35 percent positive – and that was a tic worse than their numbers from June 12th, which showed the Guv at 47 to 36 percent disapproval.

Their March poll was the last that showed him not in the negative: he was tied among voters at 41-41. This was part of an overall downward trend Corbett experienced since his spike in favorability last September.

Passing the state’s budget on time for the second year in a row could have been the reason for his slight bump in popularity, although he still trails among certain voting blocs.

Of likely voters, women disapprove of him 48 percent to 34 percent, and Independents disapprove 44 percent to 39 percent. Democrats disapprove by a 65 percent to 7 percent margin.

Men are split 42-42, while Republicans approve of Corbett 60 percent to 25 percent.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,168 likely Pennsylvania voters via live calls to land lines and cell phones. The margin or error is +/1 2.9 percent.

Update: Republican political consultant Chris Nicholas noted that the demographics of the Q-Pac poll don’t reflect voter registration realities in the state, with the poll having surveyed 32 percent Republicans, 36 percent Democrats and 26 percent Independents.

Nicholas said no state House district has more than 18 percent of voters registered Independent, and because Independents are overrepresented it skewed the poll results too heavily in the Dems’ favor “as they tend to be less interested and vote less too,” he said.

They sided with the Democrats on Obama and Casey, and in their disapproval of Corbett too.

However, while Nicholas notes that using 26 percent of registered Independents does not reflect reality, the poll question asked self-described ideology, not registration. And party registration is asked two questions later: with 40 percent Republican, 46 percent Democrat, 12 percent other.

Actual registration is currently 50 percent Dem, 37 percent GOP and 12.5 percent other. Pretty close.

7 Responses

  1. Christopher Nicholas pretending to provide an unbiased opinion is ridiculous. He is a second-rate Republican consultant (major Republicans don’t use him). Nobody outside Pennsylvania and Arlen Specter’s little sphere has heard of Chris Nicholas. On the other hand, Quinnipiac is a well-known and reputable national polling source. Know your role, Chris Nicholas.

  2. I like how Republican consultant Chris Nicholas seems to think that a registered voter is the same thing as a likely voter. I’m pretty sure that the good folks at Quinnipiac know what they’re doing.

    Of course, maybe the slight ‘bounce’ in Corbett’s numbers is a reflection of his sick river-rafting skills.

  3. Corbett should be trying to get every dollar possible for gas/drilling rights from these companies, not giving it away.

  4. It is never popular to be the one to come in and put the state back on a tract, even if is is a slow tract to fiscal responsibility.

    You can’t spend what you dont have anymore and the state is in serious debt. Whine about the cuts, but they are going to come one way or another and if it is not this way you surely will not like the alternative.

    The time to pay the piper is here and no one likes that or the reason why we are in this freaking mess. Time to stop kicking this debt down the road to our kids and meet it square on.

    I am not a Corbett fan either but at least he is stopping the runaway train of Pennsylvania debt which I doubt Dan would have done. So yeah, I would vote for TC again given the same alternative.

    I guess my answers in this poll would depend how the questions were framed on my approval rating. The bottom line is he was the better choice in 2010 and still is.

  5. Chris Nicholas should know better for two reasons:
    1) the Dems are 50% of PA electorate, so if they were under sampled, it’s worst for GOP

    2) Quinnipiac isn’t stupid. They have been doing this for a while now, and know how to weight the results so they match the distribution of the registration.

    This type of adjustment is standard practice.If PoliticsPA is going to update a news story with an “expert”, the first step should be to find an expert.

  6. we need a leader for government reform but Governor Corbett is a corporate lawyer for the status quo.

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