Florida Gov. Rick Scott doesn’t win many popularity polls, but he still wins on Election Day. A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Floridians still don’t like their governor.
Pollsters from Quinnipiac University asked Floridians how they felt about their state’s top executive. The result is a resounding thumbs down for Republican Gov. Scott. But Assistant Director of Quinnipiac Peter Brown says Scott shows he can win when he needs to.
“Mr. Scott has found a way to get those numbers up when it mattered. He got re-elected this past November by a very narrow margin. But he got re-elected,” he says.
Only forty-two percent of respondents say they approve of Rick Scott’s handling of his duties. Forty-nine percent of the nearly 1,100 people polled disapprove of Scott. In February, forty-seven percent of Floridians said they disapproved of the governor. Brown says Scott has been consistently unpopular.
“Frankly his approval numbers have been negative for most of the five years he’s been governor,” Brown says.
The Quinnipiac poll also finds eighty-four percent of voters supporting medical marijuana. Brown says Scott’s re-election despite low popularity and medical marijuana losing in the same vote share a key feature: They reflect a simple fact about American politics.
“Again, there’s a difference between poll questions and voting. And this is a good example that the poll that matters is the one on Election Day,” Brown says.
Medical marijuana supporters failed to get the sixty percent support needed to legalize the drug to treat patients. The same Quinnipiac poll also shows fifty-four percent of voters approve of Sen. Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 presidential candidate.