PPP poll explodes myths of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder as “popular centrist governor” & popularity of Right to Work

So much for THAT idea…

If you read the comments section of some of my coverage of the Right to Work for Less protest rally in Lansing, Michigan last week, you’ll see countless commenters, arriving here from Breitbart.com and Twichy.com telling us violentunionthugracistdemocratliberalfreaks about how THEY are in the mainstream and that the new Right to Work for Less legislation is not only a good idea, it’s what the people of Michigan want. And they heap kudos on a governor they say has got it figured out.

Turns out they are completely full of excrement.

Public Policy Polling (PPP) has a new poll out and things look dire for our dear governor.

Just last month when we took a first look at the 2014 landscape we talked about how much Rick Snyder had improved his popularity during his second year in office and how he led a generic Democrat for reelection by 6 points, even as Barack Obama won the state comfortably.

Last week he threw all that out the window.

We now find Snyder as one of the most unpopular Governors in the country. Only 38% of voters approve of him to 56% who disapprove. There are only 2 other sitting Governors we’ve polled on who have a worse net approval rating than Snyder’s -18. He’s dropped a net 28 points from our last poll on him, the weekend before the election, when he was at a +10 spread (47/37).

There’s not much doubt that it’s the right to work law and his embrace of other actions by the Republican legislature that are driving this precipitous drop in Snyder’s popularity. Only 41% of voters in the state support the right to work legislation, while 51% are opposed to it. If voters got to decide the issue directly only 40% of them say they would vote to keep the law enacted, while 49% would vote to overturn it. This comes on the heels of voters overturning Snyder’s signature emergency managers law last month. The simple reality is that Michigan voters like unions- 52% have a favorable opinion of them to only 33% with a negative one.

Yeeouch. Here’s how he fairs among various potential gubernatorial candidates:

In other words, things are not looking good for Governor Snyder in 2014 no matter who the Democrats choose as their candidate.

I’ll be interviewing Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer later this afternoon. Seems to me we have a LOT to talk about.

[Snyder photo credit: Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog]