Generally approve
of state leaders; disapprove of president, U.S. Congress
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Tennessee voters are less satisfied with their
standard of living and are more likely to say that it is getting worse than the
nation as a whole, according to the latest statewide poll by Middle Tennessee
State University.
At the same
time, voters approve of state leaders overall, but disapprove of the executive
and legislative branches of the federal government.
“These seeming
contrasts raise interesting questions about how Tennesseans perceive the
relationship between their quality of life and performance of government
leaders,” said Dr. Ken Blake, director of the poll at MTSU.
The poll of 600
registered Tennessee voters was conducted Jan. 15-20 and has a margin of error
of 4 percentage points.
Standard of living good, not great … and in jeopardy
More Tennessee
voters did say they are satisfied with their standard of living (67 percent)
than say they are dissatisfied (30 percent). Standard of living was defined as
“…all the things you can buy and do.”
However, more
say they feel their standard of living is getting worse (42 percent) than getting
better (34 percent). About 1 in 5 voters voluntarily answer that they feel
their standard of living is staying the same (about 20 percent).
A December 2015 Gallup
Poll found that nationwide 79 percent of respondents were satisfied with their
standard of living and 62 percent said their standard of living was getting
better.
Governor Haslam continues to be popular
Gov. Bill Haslam
had the strongest support of any elected official asked about as part of the
poll, with 58 percent of voters approving of the job he is doing and only 22
percent disapproving.
These numbers
are statistically indistinguishable from the 64 percent and 18 percent who said
that they approved and disapproved, respectively, of the job Haslam was doing
in response to an MTSU Poll conducted at about the same time in 2015.
Even 50 percent
of self-identified Democrats say that they approve of the job Haslam is doing.
Majorities of Republicans (68 percent) and independents (54 percent) also say
that they approve.
“Governor Haslam’s
popularity across party lines stands out as an exception to the usual deeply
divisive and disagreeable politics,” said Dr. Jason Reineke, associate director
of the poll.
Pluralities approve of Senators Alexander, Corker
More Tennessee
voters approve of the jobs that their United States senators are doing than
disapprove.
A 42 percent
plurality say they approve of the job that Sen. Lamar Alexander is doing, while
35 percent disapprove. Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Corker fared slightly better, with
47 percent approving and 31 percent disapproving. For each senator, though,
about 1 in 5 voters say they don’t know whether they approve or disapprove.
Half think State Legislature doing good job
Nearly half of
Tennessee voters — 48 percent — say that they approve of the job the Tennessee General
Assembly is doing, while only 26 percent disapprove. These percentages are
statistically the same as they were a year ago.
Political party
identification makes a difference, with 60 percent of self-identified
Republicans saying they approve (16 percent disapprove) and 50 percent of
self-identified Democrats saying that they disapprove (30 percent approve).
Among
self-identified independents, 44 percent say they approve, 24 percent
disapprove.
More disapproval for President Obama
Fully 61 percent
of Tennessee voters say that they disapprove of the job that President Barack
Obama is doing, up from 52 percent who said the same in an early 2015 MTSU
poll. Only 31 percent say that they approve, compared to 37 percent who said
the same a year ago.
A FOX News poll
of registered voters nationwide conducted at about the same time as this year’s
MTSU Poll found that 45 percent approve of the job Obama is doing while 48
percent disapprove.
U.S.
Congress is again the worst
Despite the relatively positive evaluations that Tennessee voters give
their own U.S. senators, their views of the U.S. Congress as a whole are
nothing short of abysmal.
A remarkable 80 percent say that they disapprove of Congress. Only 12
percent approve. These numbers are even worse for Congress than those found in
a previous MTSU Poll about a year ago, when 70 percent disapproved and 15
percent approved.
A national CBS/New York Times poll conducted in early January 2016 found
that 75 percent of Americans disapproved of Congress while 15 percent approved.
“The United States Congress received far and away the worst overall
evaluation of any elected official or government institution that we asked
Tennessee voters about,” Reineke said.
Previously released results from the latest poll included voter opinions
about the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates; abortion
regulations; gun rights; gasoline tax; and the admission of Syrian refugees to
the country. Those results are available at mtsupoll.org.
Methodology
Telephone
interviews for the poll were completed by Issues & Answers Network Inc.
from among a random sample of registered Tennessee voters age 18 and over. Data
were collected using Tennessee statewide voter registration sample of 60
percent landline and 40 percent cell phones. The average interview length was
12 minutes. Quotas by gender and Grand Region were implemented. Data were
weighted based on respondent age to ensure the data represent Tennessee
registered voters. The survey’s error margin of 4 percentage points indicates one
can be 95 percent confident that the actual population figure lies within 4
percentage points (in either direction) of the poll result. Error margins for
subgroups can be larger, depending on the subgro
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