11 Most Popular Governors Are All Republicans, With Blue State Republicans Claiming Top 3: New Poll
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (Darren McCollester/Getty Images for DraftKings)
Morning Consult’s latest breakdown of the most and least popular governors in the country shows Republicans absolutely dominating Democrats in terms of their approval ratings.
The top eleven most-popular governors are all Republicans, with the top three leading blue states.
On average the 28 Republican governors have a 58 percent approval rating compared to the 22 Democrats, who have a 51 percent approval.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is the most popular governor in the country with a whopping 74 percent approval rating. Vermont’s Phil Scot follows close behind with a 72 percent approval rating and Maryland’s Larry Hogan is in third with 71 percent.
The rest of the top eleven are Republican governors leading conservative states, all of whom have an approval rating over 60 percent. Meanwhile, the five least popular governors in the country are all Democrats.
Rhode Island’s Dan McKee, Hawaii’s David Ige, and Oregon’s Kate Brown are the bottom three, with Brown coming in last with a 54 percent disapproval rating and only a 41 percent approval rating in her deep blue state.
Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Delaware’s John Carney, and Colorado’s Jared Polis are the three most popular Democratic governors in the country all with an approval rating of over 57 percent.
Andy Beshear is the most popular Democratic Governor in America according to a new poll with a 59% approval rating in Kentucky pic.twitter.com/Tem3thDn4F
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) April 28, 2022
Of those three only McKee is up for reelection in 2022. McKeen is joined by Wisconsin’s Tony Evers and New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham, both Democrats, as the three governors up for reelection with the lowest approval ratings – all below 50 percent.
Morning Consult’s Eli Yokley notes that most governors seeking reelection in 2022 are very popular. “Across the country, all but eight governors are backed by 50% or more of their state’s voters,” Yokley writes. “And in nearly all cases, the Democrats among them are getting higher approval ratings than Biden, while more often than not drawing more cross-party support than the president and Democratic senators.”
Yokley adds:
Democratic governors who face contests viewed as toss-ups by The Cook Political Report are fairly popular: 55% approve of Laura Kelly in Kansas, 51% approve of Steve Sisolak in Nevada and 50% approve of Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, though 46% disapprove.
Morning Consult surveyed a representative sample of “at least 601 registered voters in each state” between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2022, for the survey. The individual state surveys have an unweighted margin of error of 1 to 4 percent.
