As her national profile rises to the point that she was played by Cecily Strong on Saturday Night Live this week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's local approval numbers are flagging.
A new poll from EPIC-MRA of Lansing reveals that 52% of respondents gave Whitmer a positive job approval rating and 47% gave her a negative rating. Also, 49% said they had a favorable opinion of Whitmer, while 44% said they had an unfavorable opinion of her. Another 7% were undecided.
Freep.com reports, "Gov. Gretchen Whitmer remains a popular leader, but her support has slipped over the last several months in what a pollster believes is a reflection of public frustration over the coronavirus pandemic."
It's safe to say the governor of the Mitten State has had a tumultuous year -- from fighting with former President Donald Trump over coronavirus supplies and being the target of a kidnapping plot to being floated for months as a Democratic candidate for the vice presidency.
But the numbers clearly show that more people approved of the job she was doing last year and into the fall, as the worst of the pandemic raged.
In September, WWJ's Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick reported that Whitmer had a 61% approval rating and a 38% disapproval rating. The Detroit News/WDIV poll found at the time the first-term Democratic governor's approval rating had risen more than 15 points since January. In January 2020, only 43% approved of Whitmer's job while 36% disapproved.
There was also a disconnect clearly displayed in the numbers, Skubick reported, because Republican leaders and others in the GOP ranks have heavily criticized her for overreaching during the coronavirus pandemic with orders to shut down the state and keep businesses and public spaces closed longer than they were in many other states. State GOP leaders went to court multiple times to try to strip Whitmer of her emergency powers because they claimed she was overusing them.
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The GOP has also stoked the fires of recall and impeachment, pushing residents to oust the governor from office in a recall attempt.
Still, she persisted.
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The poll of 600 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, experts say. It was conducted by live interviewers from Feb. 19 and 25.
"She has slipped in terms of her favorability," Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA, told freep.com about the latest poll numbers. "Also, it is unusual that job rating is higher than favorability. That all can be related, I think, to frustration with COVID."