“As popular as Barack Obama ” is a label coveted these days by any politician — and maybe even more prized by incumbents of the beleaguered Republican Party who face re-election contests in 2010, the first midterm election year of Democrat Obama’s presidency.
And according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist is one of those Republicans who can wear Obama-like approval ratings as a badge of honor.
The survey of 1,370 Florida voters taken Jan. 14-19 showed 67 percent of respondents held a favorable opinion of Crist, who was elected governor in the 2006 race to succeed term-limited Republican Jeb Bush. Those who said they disapproved totaled 21 percent, with 10 percent saying they did not know enough to answer and 2 percent declining to state an opinion.
These numbers for Crist, two years into his term, were comparable to those enjoyed by Obama in Florida during his pre-inauguration national “honeymoon.” Obama scored a 66 percent favorable rating in the poll taken in the six days immediately before his swearing-in, well above the 51 percent of the vote he took in scoring a key electoral vote victory in Florida last November. While 48 percent of the state’s voters favored Republican John McCain for president, just 16 percent of the poll respondents said they disapproved of Obama, with 12 percent saying they didn’t know enough and 5 percent declining to answer.
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But the partisan breakdown on Crist’s poll numbers show that his image as a Republican centrist, particularly on social issues, is helping him build support across party lines. A solid 58 percent of Democratic respondents and 68 percent of independents joined 72 percent of Republicans in approving of Crist’s performance as governor.
