Castleton Polling Institute The Castleton University Poll that concluded September 14 assessed the Vermont general public’s views on the performance of President Barack Obama and Governor Peter Shumlin as well as an assessment of the current state of the state. According to the recent Castleton Poll, 47 percent of Vermonters approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing as president, and 39 percent disapprove—giving the President a net approval rating of 8 percentage points. Fourteen percent of the Vermont respondents have no opinion about the president’s performance. In the latest Gallup Poll, 46 percent of Americans approve of the President’s job performance, and 49 percent disapprove—a net approval score of -3 percentage points. Only 5 percent of respondents in the Gallup Poll said that they had no opinion on the question.
While the percentage of Vermonters who approve of the President’s job performance exceeds the percentage that disapproves, the same cannot be said for Governor Shumlin, although his numbers heading into autumn are slightly better than those found in the VT Digger Poll from the past winter. In the recent Castleton Poll, 40 percent of Vermonters say that they approve of the job the Governor is doing, while 43 percent disapprove;16 percent remain on the fence, expressing no opinion. The net approval score of -3 percentage points is a slight improvement from last winter where the net approval score was -6 points. The number of Vermonters without an opinion—neither willing to say they approve nor say they disapprove—has increased by a mere 4 percentage points, from 12 percent in the winter to 16 percent today.
The Governor’s approval ratings are lowest among those who say that they follow news about Vermont very closely, as illustrated in Figure 1. Only 19 percent of respondents say that they follow news about Vermont “very closely;” 50 percent follow it “fairly closely,” 24 percent “not too closely,” and 7 percent “not at all.”
Figure 1. Gubernatorial Approval by the degree to which respondents follow state news
While President Obama’s approval numbers are mostly driven by partisan affiliation, the response to Shumlin’s approval is more complex. Eighty percent of Vermont Democrats approve of the job being done by the President, whereas only 58 percent of Democrats approve of the Governor’s job performance. Only 12 percent of Vermont Republicans approve of the job Obama is doing, but 22 percent approve of Shumlin’s performance as governor. Independents are more likely to approve of the President’s job performance (44 percent) than that of the Governor (38 percent). The President also does much better with older Vermonters than does the Governor.
Just as Vermonters are nearly evenly divided on the job performance of the Governor, they are evenly split in their opinion on the direction of the state of Vermont; 44 percent say that Vermont is heading in the right direction, and 43 percent say that the state is on the wrong track. The public ambivalence about the direction of the state, combined with the fact that neither the race for governor nor that for lieutenant governor will feature an incumbent, suggests that Vermonter voters can go in any direction at this point.
There is a clear relationship between party affiliation and the public’s opinion on the direction of the state, as illustrated in Figure 2, Democrats feeling best about the direction of the state, and Republicans being the least optimistic.
Figure 2. Views on the direction of Vermont by party affiliation
