The new Morning Consult poll on the country’s governors is out, and the news is seriously mixed for Rhode Island’s Dan McKee.
On one hand, his 45 percent approval rating is substantially higher than several other recent polls that raised serious doubts about his ability to win reelection next year. His disapproval rating was 40 percent.
On the other hand, McKee’s approval rating is tied for second-lowest in the country with Indiana Governor Mike Braun. Only Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who announced earlier this year she isn’t seeking reelection, ranked lower, at 42 percent.
Morning Consult conducts its online surveys on a rolling basis over three months, and releases quarterly approval ratings for all governors and US senators.
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Among New England’s governors, Vermont Governor Phil Scott (72 percent) has the best approval rating in the country, followed by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (63 percent), Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (59 percent), New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte (50 percent), and Maine Governor Janet Mills (49 percent).
The bigger picture: As I wrote in The Globe’s Starting Point newsletter this morning, Rhode Island has a long history of assigning low approval ratings to its governors, but that doesn’t guarantee McKee is dead in the water.
McKee’s surrogates will undoubtedly note that former governor Gina Raimondo had a 43 percent approval/47 percent disapproval rating in a July 2017 Morning Consult poll, and she won reelection a year later in relatively comfortable fashion.
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Then again, Raimondo didn’t face the same kind of credible Democratic primary challenge that McKee is likely to face next year. Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who narrowly lost to McKee in 2022, is expected to report raising more than $600,000 in the second quarter of this year, and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi is also mulling a run.
Still, if politics is the ultimate “what have you done for me lately?” sport, McKee can at least use Morning Consult’s numbers to assuage the fears of some of his donors and other supporters for the time being.
This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you’d like to receive it via email Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Dan McGowan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @danmcgowan.