A poll conducted by Morning Consult found that Gov. Kay Ivey has the nation’s highest job approval rating among her state’s Republican voters, at 86%. The group polled the approval ratings of all Republican governors within their own state’s GOP voters.
Ivey was also the fifth most popular governor among all voters regardless of party with 64% approval from all Alabama voters. According to the poll, 30% of the overall Alabama voters disapproved of Ivey’s job performance.
Ivey’s top rank among Republican voters outdistanced these popular governors:
Ron DeSantis (Florida). 84%
Brian Kemp (Georgia). 84%
Kristi Noem (South Dakota) 84%
Henry McMaster (South Carolina) 83%
The lowest-ranked governor in job approval among in-state Republican voters was Doug Burgum of North Dakota. He nevertheless came in with 65% GOP voter approval.
The Morning Consult Political Intelligence Survey was conducted from January - March 2024.
Morning Consult is an American political and business intelligence company established in 2014. They specialize in online survey research technology.
In the 2016 presidential election, Morning Consult’s polls showed the race much closer than any other polling company. The other polls had shown Hillary Clinton winning by a comfortable margin.
Morning Consult has over 500 employees, all in the United States with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
Cameron Easley, lead U.S. politics analyst at Morning Consult, explained the methodology of the approval rating and comparison of the governors:
Since the beginning of 2017, Morning Consult has asked every registered U.S. voter we survey what they think of the job performance of their U.S. governor. By consolidating responses from these daily interviews, we are able to provide the industry’s only comprehensive look at the popularity of America’s top statewide officials in all 50 states.
Our definitive rankings of America’s most and least popular governors provide the exceedingly rare apples-to-apples, cross-country comparison of governors’ relative popularity among their own voter base, including by political affiliation, age, race and educational attainment.
Each quarter, the U.S. Governor Approval Outlook will keep you up to date on which governors are surging or struggling in the wake of key events, including those who may be up for re-election down the road — whether that be within the year, during the next election cycle or even two cycles away.
All state-level data represents trailing three-month averages of monthly roll-ups derived from Morning Consult’s daily U.S. tracking survey.
Additional information on the poll can be found here.
Ivey was elected lieutenant governor in 2010 and 2014 but became governor in 2017 upon Gov. Robert Bentley's resignation. She has since been elected twice, in 2018 and 2022. She is now term-limited and scheduled to leave office in January 2027. The state constitution bars her from running a third time in the 2026 state elections.
Former ALGOP chair Terry Lathan responded to the news of Ivey’s top approval rating, saying, "Alabama should be proud of Governor Ivey’s high stepping numbers. She is focused on doing what is right for our state, is scandal free and is implementing strong conservative policy. Her priorities on the parental school choice act (CHOOSE) combined with focused economic plans are pleasing to citizens."
"She also says what she means and means what she says- people appreciate the honest dialogue. She doesn’t care about getting credit- she cares about good outcomes for our state," she continued. "We clearly see it."
Lathan was appointed by Ivey to the new Alabama Numeracy Board and the Mathematics Task Force.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com.
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