A new poll suggests voters have a higher opinion of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s job performance in the wake of super storm Sandy. However, nearly 1 in 4 say they just don’t care.
Forty percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University pollsay Corbett’s doing all right on the job compared to 38 percent who don’t care for the job he’s doing. The remainder of those polled had no opinion of the governor at all.
“Don’t know, or no opinion was higher than normal, said Quinnipiac pollster Tim Malloy. “Maybe people were sorting it out, I mean, it’s an election period. Maybe people were just burned out having an opinion on a politician generally.”
Governor Corbett’s job approval rating is the highest it’s been since March. When voters were asked specifically how they liked Corbett’s handling of the super storm, his score jumped to 61 percent.
Malloy said the governor came across well when he provided regular updates on the storm and the recovery.
"A million people in Pennsylvania [were] without power, he was heading up a command post, he looked good doing it, and so we would call this a Sandy bump,” said Malloy.
To put this in context, the same survey found President Obama’s handling of the storm rated high among 74 percent of respondents.
Narrowing the category of respondents by party leads to predictable results: among Republicans, the governor has a 61 percent approval rating. Among Democrats, he has a 26 percent approval rating.
There were more than 14-hundred poll respondents.
