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New Poll Says Rick Scott, Florida Budget Unpopular

Voters might not be that familiar with the nuances of Gov. Rick Scott’s policies or the budget he will sign Thursday, but they don’t care for either, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

The survey of 1,196 registered voters, parts of which were released Wednesday, showed Scott’s disapproval rating climbing to 57 percent, up from 48 percent in April and 22 percent in February. The governor’s approval rating slid to 29 percent after having held steady at 35 percent in the earlier two polls.

“These are not good numbers,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “There’s no way to spin these numbers that they’re good for the governor.”

Most of the newly critical voters appear to have been undecided in February, when 43 percent offered no opinion, far more than the 14 percent who didn’t weigh in during the May poll.

Brown said the approval ratings are the worst numbers for a governor in any of the six states Quinnipiac regularly polls.

The brief honeymoon for Scott from Florida voters isn’t surprising, said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. Scott narrowly won the general election in November and has since had to contend with a legislative session that ended badly and a painful budgeting process. He’s also taking heat for the slow economic recovery.

“If people are suffering in a bad economy, and you promise to create jobs, you’ve got to deliver — and people aren’t too patient,” MacManus said.

And as Scott heads to The Villages on Thursday to approve the state spending plan and nix some proposals with his line-item veto, the poll suggested both the budget and Scott’s handling of it are unpopular.

Voters disapproved of the governor’s approach to the budget by a 59-30 margin, and only 24 percent of those responding to the poll approve of the spending measure.

Despite Republicans’ largely successful efforts to hold the line on tax and fee increases during the last legislative session, voters split 42-40 when asked if Scott has kept his promise not to raise taxes.

At the same time, more than half (54 percent) said Scott shouldn’t have made that pledge, and only about a quarter (26 percent) think the spending plan will help create jobs — something the governor and lawmakers have said is at the enter of the proposal.

“The voters who are aware of the cuts he has made to the budget are not particularly happy about it, and those who might be expected to support him because (lawmakers were) able to balance the budget without raising taxes don’t know that that’s the case,” Brown said.

In an interview with WQAM, a sports-talk radio station in Miami on Wednesday, Scott suggested the steps he’s taken to deal with the state’s budget crisis are partly to blame for the poor numbers.

“When you go make all the tough decisions, when you walk into a budget deficit of $3.7 billion and you hold people accountable, you make sure that education’s headed in the right direction, you make sure that you’re getting the jobs back — it takes time for those things to happen,” Scott said. “We’re on the right track, the right things are going to happen.”

Some of the confusion over taxes could stem from discussions by county commissions and school boards about whether to increase revenues as they try to close out their budgets, MacManus said.

“The bottom line is, whether it’s state or local, it all ends up on the governor’s desk,” she said.

Sensing an opening, Democrats amped up long-shot efforts to get Scott to veto the entire budget. Party Chairman Rod Smith sent an email to supporters calling the blueprint “nothing short of a nightmare for Florida” and asking them to sign a petition. At least two lawmakers — Reps. Dwight Bullard of Miami and Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach — issued statements supporting a veto.

“By vetoing the entire budget — rather than simply rejecting a few token line items — and calling the Legislature back into session to craft a better state spending plan, the governor can help prevent the hardship that this budget will bring to thousands of Floridians,” Pafford said.

Pollsters also asked voters about property-insurace rates and regulation. Only 3 percent of voters think it’s getting easier to buy property insurance in Florida; 59 percent of those polled favor more government regulation of the market. That includes 67 percent of voters in Southeast Florida and 64 percent in the Tampa Bay area.

At the same time, lawmakers and Scott have pushed to loosen rules on private insurers and push property owners out of the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, saying those moves would help encourage new insurers to enter the state market. Critics of those efforts quickly pounced on the numbers.

“It’s not surprising that Floridians are rejecting Rick Scott and the Republican Legislature’s rate hikes and insurance industry giveaways,” said Sean Shaw, a former state insurance consumer advocate who now works for Merlin Group, a law firm that specializes in suing insurers. “Most Floridians aren’t worth $300 million, which makes it a little harder to swallow higher insurance bills and less insurer accountability.”

By Brandon Larrabee
The News Service of Florida