Republican governors in four states experiencing an uptick in coronavirus cases have seen their approval ratings tank this month, according to a new poll.
A SurveyMonkey poll released by Axios on Friday shows Republican governors of Florida, Texas, Arizona and Georgia have all lost support as coronavirus cases surged in their states this month.
Poll results show:
- 62% of Arizonians say they disapprove of Gov. Doug Ducey’s coronavirus response.
- 58% of Floridians say they are not fans of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ virus response.
- 55% of Georgians say they do not approve of Gov. Brian Kemp’s handling of the virus.
- 55% of Texans are not fans of Gov. Greg Abbott’s virus action plan.
According to the poll, these numbers have drastically changed since May with support taking a large slide backward.
The survey shows that more people know someone infected with the virus now than they did in May.
Between May 11-17, only 33% of Floridians said they knew someone with coronavirus. But between July 13-19, that number has bumped up to 55%. Texas saw an increase in people who say they know someone infected from 32% in May to 62% in July.
SurveyMonkey chief research officer Jon Cohen told Axios the drop of support for the governors was due to a softening in support from Republicans.
According to the poll, 69% of Texan Republicans say they approve of Gov. Greg Abbott’s coronavirus response, which is down from 89% who backed the governor’s response after Memorial Day.
Cohen said the reason California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s support remains at 60% despite an increase in cases is because he has held onto support from Democrats.
Cohen said Newsom still has the support of 82% of Democrats, even though he has lost support from Republicans and independents.
Gov. Ducey’s communications director Patrick Ptak dismissed the poll results.
"We are not focused on polling. We are focused on managing this pandemic,” Ptak told Axios.
The poll results come from a set of SurveyMonkey online polls conducted between May 11-July 19. The survey polled 519,349 adults. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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