The second week of April was, by the roller-coaster standards of the Patrick era, a pretty good one for the governor. He won legislative approval for some of his long-sought corporate tax hikes, touted progress on several job-development initiatives, and won plaudits for a widely-covered speech on the economy. But when Survey USA went into the field the weekend of April 11 for its regular tracking of the governor's job approval rating, the results marked an all-time low.
Here are the numbers, just reported to us by Survey USA today. They show Patrick winning approval from an anemic 41% of registered voters, while an astonishing 56% give thumbs down.
A special survey we commissioned with a smaller sample on April 9th had the spread at 41-49%. But it's probably better for direct comparison purposes to match these results up with the last 600-adult tracking poll taken in mid-February (before Bookgate).
Back then, Patrick's approval/disapproval was 47-45%, not great, but not that bad. But now, his disapproval is off the charts, especially among men: 61% of them now disapprove of his work, up from 47% in mid-winter. All age groups are markedly less satisfied with Patrick's performance now than they were two months ago, none more so than the 35-54 demographic, where his approval has collapsed from 44% to 30% and his disapproval has jumped an eye-popping 18 points to 68%, George W. Bush-like numbers. Democrats are losing patience, too; his 61-31% spread of February has dwindled to 53-44%. In the ideological categories, moderates continue to desert Patrick. And get this: even liberals, who approved of his work by a whopping 70-25% spread back then, are now evenly divided on the topic. And one final note: with the warning that they're only about 20% of the sample in each survey, a relatively small slice that could skew the numbers somewhat, voters in southeastern Massachusetts (including the Cape) seem to be especially alienated. His rating there was 47-44% in February; now, it's 31-66%.
Tax and spend isn't a winning combination in this state. I'd love to see the newest numbers on the income tax elimination question.
