This morning Quinnipiac tells us . . . well, they more or less tell us it’s too early to start polling Ohioans about their new governor:
Ohio voters oppose 61 – 34 percent raising taxes to balance the state budget, but by a 58 – 28 percent margin, they don’t believe their new governor, John Kasich, will be able to keep his no- tax promise, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Voters say 50 – 42 percent that Gov. Kasich should not have made this no-tax pledge, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.
After one week in office, Kasich gets 30 – 22 percent job approval rating, with 48 percent of voters undecided. But voters are generally optimistic, 59 – 29 percent, about the next four years in Ohio with Kasich as governor.
“Gov. John Kasich starts out with a barely positive job approval from the voters, although in fairness almost half have yet to develop an opinion of his performance given he is only a little more than a week in office,” said Peter A. Brown assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Kasich, however, does have an electorate that is optimistic about his ability to turn the state around. Voters are aware of the problems facing Ohio: 96 percent call the state’s budget problems ‘very serious’ or ‘somewhat serious,’ the highest level of concern we’ve ever measured in the state.”
It also sounds like the Ohio voters reached by Quinnipiac need a bit of Chris Christie straight talk about the choices before them, as they don’t like many of the options to deal with the state’s budget:
While voters may be aware of the budget problems, they are not happy about some of the ideas being advocated by Kasich and/or Republicans who control both houses of the legislature. By 53 – 32 percent voters say they would rather cut services than raise taxes to balance the budget. Service cuts win 76 – 13 percent support from Republicans and 56 – 29 percent support from independent voters, while Democrats favor tax hikes 50 – 36 percent. But voters say 51 – 36 percent that eliminating the tax on estates of more than $338,000 is a bad idea. Ohio voters oppose a number of proposals to help balance the state budget: 46 – 43 percent against layoffs for state workers; 51 – 30 percent against leasing the Ohio Turnpike to a private company; 51 – 33 percent against hiring a private company to run state prisons. A proposal to limit the ability of state and local government workers to bargain collectively is a bad idea, voters say 51 – 34 percent.
I wonder if pollsters are ever tempted to ask, “All right, what do you want to do?”