Gore Enjoys Slight Boost in Favorability Ratings

i-79837c90436a595c7926bd2574386238-GoreFavorable2008.gif

When Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006, Gallup polling showed that less than a majority of Americans had a favorable view of Al Gore. Yet just following his Nobel Prize win at the end of 2007, Gallup polling showed that this favorability rating had jumped to 58%. Call it the "Nobel bounce."

A recently released Pew survey shows that Gore's approval rating continues to hover just over the majority mark at 53%. Notably, in Pew tracking, as shown above, Gore has gained 11% in the "very favorable" category among Dems and 19% in the "very favorable" category among the college educated. However, despite an overall 5% gain among Republicans, his favorability rating still registers at less than a third of Republicans (29%), suggesting again that as the WE campaign recognizes, spokespeople other than Gore are needed if his climate change message is going to break through beyond the left-leaning Democratic base.

To put the Gore ratings in context, consider that the Pew survey finds that Condi Rice enjoys a 66% favorability, Defense Secretary Robert Gates registers a 62%, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates scores a 69%.

More like this

How difficult is it for a well known political figure to break through the perceptual screens of partisanship, along with the ingrained frames of reference that citizens have developed over years, and boost their standing in the polls? Consider Al Gore. Despite winning an Academy Award, receiving…
Since Earth Day, a number of polls have been released confirming that public opinion on climate change has changed very little over the past two years or since the premiere of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Conventional wisdom pegged Gore's film and media campaign as changing the nature of the…
I've noted in recent presentations and posts the strong role of partisanship in how Americans view the science and relative urgency of global warming. Yet according to a Pew survey released this week, the divide runs deeper and more complex. Pew reports striking educational differences in…
A Gallup survey report released yesterday finds that a record 41% of Americans--and 66% of Republicans--now say that news reports of climate change are exaggerated. I first spotted this troubling trend in a 2007 paper analyzing twenty years of public opinion about climate change. This latest…

I figured a number in the 50's was respectable until I read the other figures for comparison. People must actually hate Gore a lot if he has lower rankings than Condi and both Gates. Those numbers are quite surprising considering the supposed 'green revolution' that is catching fire in the US. No wonder he couldn't beat Bush--something about him just doesn't sit right with a good bit of the public.