Charlie Baker Is the Most Popular Governor in America Again
Photo via Governor’s Office/Alastair Pike
Once again, Gov. Charlie Baker is the most popular governor in America, according to a new poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult.
The Massachusetts governor had enjoyed top honors through the first half of 2016, before slipping to third in the fall, behind South Dakota’s Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Maryland’s Larry Hogan, two fellow Republicans.
In Morning Consult’s latest poll, Baker notched a 75-percent approval rating. Vermont’s Gov. Phil Scott, another Republican, followed closely behind in fourth with a 68-percent approval. The four other New England governors fell outside the top 10.
Connecticut’s Dan Malloy, a Democrat, ranked the nation’s third-most disliked governor, with a 66-percent disapproval. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, boasted the third-highest share of respondents who don’t know how to feel about him. One-time Herald presidential endorsee Chris Christie, soon dislodging himself from New Jersey’s corner office, was named the most unpopular governor in America.
To compile their ranking, Morning Consult polled 85,000 registered voters, who evaluated their governors’ job performance from January 2017 through March 2017. This timeframe includes Baker’s conspicuous absence at post-inaugural anti-Trump rallies in Boston, getting booed at the Patriots rolling rally, and floating (and subsequently dropping) a widely panned proposal to cut weekend commuter rail service.
To the presumed dismay of 2018 Democratic hopefuls, it seems voters in Massachusetts—one of just two states where not a single county went red in 2016—are having little trouble differentiating Baker from President Donald Trump, whose national approval rating currently languishes at 41.6 percent, according to RealClearPolitics’ aggregate poll.
