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Popular Governor

By tfk on October 23, 2006.

With mere weeks before the elections, Governor Sebelius is sitting pretty. SurveyUSA released its poll of approval for all 50 governors, and Sebelius is the 14th most popular. For what it's worth, the allegedly resurgent Aaahnahld is the 38th.

Republican approval of Governor Sebelius seems to have leveled out at 52%, for 6% net approval. Independent voters have leveled out at around 56% approval (interestingly, the number of independents inexplicably dropped from around 30% to around 19%, a shift that happened somewhere between April and May). Only 19% of Democrats disapprove.

Conservatives are slightly more negative than Republicans as a whole, with net approval of -8%. As always, moderates love the Guv, there's net approval 43%. Liberal net approval stands at 51%.

SUSA also did a poll about negative campaigning, which found that most people think Attorney General Kline has been more negative than Paul Morrison. They claim that negative ads just drive down their desire to vote for anyone, though I think examinations of actual voting habits tend to show that negative campaigning does shift votes.

Oddly, people are about as likely to think that political endorsements from across party lines are less meaningful as to find them more so.

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Policy and Politics

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She has mostly avoided controversial issues, and focused on careful management of the state's budget. The legislature is Republican enough she can't move any agenda without bipartisan backing. She's had to do a lot of her politicking behind the scenes, to keep from making moderate Republicans look like Democrats.

And that has paid huge dividends, not least in the many Republicans who have switched parties.

Thta's an incredible bipartisan support statistic, given today's divisive attitudes. What does she do to enjoy such bipartisan numbers?

Wow. Well, it's nice that she can do that, but it also seems to mean that some substantial changes will be difficult. One of the reasons we have so many controversial issues is due to empty rhetoric, but that means progress is impossible. Sigh.