Perdue's number are improving, thanks to reorg plan

While Civitas' latest polls shows Pat McCrory with a lede in a potential 2012 matchup with the governor, Gov. Bev Perdue's numbers are improving, thanks partly to her recently proposed reorganization plan.  Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling says Perdue's numbers aren't great but they're a lot better than they were -- "a major improvement" in the past year.  She was at a 27 percent approval level last year at this time, but is up around 35 percent approval now.

Here's what Jensen had to say:


There's strong bipartisan support for Bev Perdue's proposed reorganization of state government and partially as a result of that her approval numbers are now at their best level since April of 2009, shortly after she took office.

50% of voters support Perdue's plans for reducing the size of state government with only 23% opposed. There's little difference across party lines in support for her proposal- 52% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats, and 45% of independents say they support what she wants to do on that front.

Being in the spotlight with a popular policy proposal will tend to help your approval rating and 35% of voters in the state now approve of Perdue with just 44% disapproving of her. The last time PPP found Perdue's disapproval as low as the 44% mark was three months after she took office in April of 2009, when her approval was a positive 41/40 spread. The next month she saw a precipitous drop to 34/51 and she hasn't been back on positive ground since.

Although she remains unpopular Perdue has at least seen a major improvement in her approval numbers over the course of 2010. Last December Perdue's approval rating was only 27% with 53% of voters giving her bad marks. Perdue's net approval rating now of -9 represents a 17 point improvement from her -26 spread a year ago at this time.

Comparing Perdue's numbers now to where they were at the beginning of the year, the most marked improvement is with her party base. 55% of Democrats now approve of the job she's doing where only 41% did earlier. She's also seen a good amount of improvement with Republicans. Although she remains largely unpopular with them her approval has nearly doubled from 8% to 15%. The most worrisome group for Perdue remains independents. She was at 28/56 with them in December of 2009 and her numbers now are pretty identical at 26/49. A PPP poll last month showed Perdue losing independents by 31 points in a hypothetical contest with Pat McCrory and it's clear that's the group she most needs to improve her standing with if she hopes to win a second term.