NC has no popular politicians

Is there truly a popular politician in North Carolina these days? If you go by the usual measure of a 50% + approval or favorability rating the answer is no. If you lower the standard to 45% because there's a recession in political approval ratings right now the answer is still no.

Neither of our Senators or Governor has an approval rating over 40%. Our August polling found Richard Burr at 38%, Kay Hagan at 32%, and Bev Perdue at 27%.

So how about the top vote getters in last fall's election? Roy Cooper and Elaine Marshall received 61 and 57% of the vote respectively for reelection but when we polled on them this year 41-44% of voters said they had a favorable opinion of Cooper and 28% said the same of Marshall- so even if they received a lot of votes that's not necessarily an indication of large numbers of voters holding affection for them.

The last time we showed a North Carolina politician at 50% was Mike Easley in January of 2007. But by the time he left office that was all the way down to 33%.

How does NC compare to other states? This chart shows the average approval rating of the Governor and Senators in the 14 places where we've done a comprehensive poll in 2009:

State	Average Governor/Senator Approval
Oklahoma	54
West Virginia	53
Delaware	51
Alabama	50
Virginia	49
Arkansas	49
Louisiana	47
Wisconsin	46
Kentucky	40
Ohio	39
Illinois	38
Colorado	37
New Jersey	34
North Carolina	32

North Carolinians like their politicians less than any other state we've polled this year. All of the rest had at least one with an approval rating in the 40s.

The dearth of popularity for politicians doesn't seem likely to change any time soon either. Roy Cooper might have hit 50 with the greater name recognition he built from a race for a higher profile office, but he declined. Burr will certainly have more visibility next year, but that cuts both ways, as Elizabeth Dole found out. Would a new Senator start out popular? Not if Hagan's numbers are an indicator. And Perdue's about a continent away from 50%.

It will be interesting to see if a Jim Hunt or Jesse Helms arrives on the scene any time soon and is able to retain the affection of a majority- even a bare majority- of North Carolina voters for an extended period of time.