A whopping 43 percent of Florida voters remain undecided on their new governor, Rick Scott’s job approval rating, with 35 percent giving him the nod and 22 percent disapproving, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday. A consistent 28 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Scott, but 45 percent say they haven’t heard enough about him, up from 30 percent six months ago, and therefore don’t have a favorable or unfavorable opinion.
By 56 – 29 percent, voters are generally optimistic about the four years with Scott as governor.
“‘Too soon to tell,’ many Florida voters are saying about their new governor one month into his term. Interestingly, he has a better rating for his job performance than when voters are asked if they view him favorably or not,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “This may reflect the negativity of the campaign and the omnipresent charges by his opponents questioning his honesty as a corporate executive.”
Florida voters take the state’s budget woes seriously, with 64 percent calling them “very serious” and another 30 percent saying they are “somewhat serious”.
Despite how they view the budgetary problems, Floridians are not thrilled about Scott’s plan to cut the state workforce by at least 5 percent, with 46 – 42 percent calling it a “bad idea”. They also support Scott’s plan to cut corporate and property taxes by about $2 billion, with 50 – 43 percent calling it a “good idea”.
A majority of Floridians, 52 – 34 percent say they prefer services to be cut as opposed to raising taxes to meet the budgetary shortfall, although, 48 – 44 percent say Scott should not have promised to do so without raising taxes.
“Voters say they see a serious problem with the state’s finances yet they aren’t happy with the idea of laying off state employees to save money. And they back cutting taxes which will require even greater spending cuts to balance the budget,” said Brown.
While Florida voters are about evenly split on government layoffs, by a plurality, 64 – 28 percent, they think that state workers should contribute to their pensions, which is not currently the case.
The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,160 registered voters from January 25 – 31 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.
