Survey: Tennessee Gov. Haslam ranks 10th nationally in home-state job approval

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam talks about education and his budget to the editorial board at the Times Free Press.
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam talks about education and his budget to the editorial board at the Times Free Press.

NASHVILLE - Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is one of the nation's most popular governors, according to a new Morning Consult national survey.

A Republican, Haslam held down the No. 10 spot with 60 percent of Tennesseans surveyed saying they approved of him and 23 percent disapproving. Sixteen percent had no opinion or didn't know.

All governors in the top 10 were Republicans with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker leading the way with 71 percent approval and 17 percent disapproval.

GOP governors, however, also accounted for seven of the ten chief executives with the worst job approval ratings. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie landed at No. 50 with 69 percent disapproval and just 25 percent approval.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican and state's former lieutenant governor who took over governor's mansion in April after the scandal-plagued Robert Bentley resigned, ranked No. 6 on job approval. Nearly two thirds of voters - 64 percent - of those surveyed approved of her performance while just 13 percent disapproved.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, had 57 percent approval and 26 percent disapproval with 16 percent saying they had no opinion or didn't know.

Morning Consult says its surveys were based on interviews with more than 195,000 registered voters across the country from April 1 through July 10.

The margin of error in Tennessee was plus or minus 2 percent. For Georgia, it was 1 percent and in Alabama it was 4 percent.

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