Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gets poor grades from Connecticut voters on his overall performance and his handling of the state budget, but large majorities approve of bills to mandate paid sick days and decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. (AP photo)
A Quinnipiac poll released this morning has plenty of bad news for Gov. Malloy, who gets negative remarks both on his overall job performance (38 percent approve while 44 percent disapprove) and his handling of the state budget (36 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove).
But two major bills championed by Malloy are extremely popular — and when it comes to the paid stick leave bill, perhaps a lot more popular than state legislators realized while the bill was being debated.
The sick leave bill, mandating major companies provide employees with at least five paid sick days, barely passed the state Senate by an 18-17 vote (Sen. John Kissell of Enfield was the only Republican to support it), and didn’t have a whole lot of margin for error in the House, either.
The Quinnipiac poll, though, shows that 72 percent of all voters polled support the measure.
The measure gets support from voters across party lines — 84 percent of Democrats support it, along with 72 percent of independents and even 50 percent of Republicans.
The bill decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana is also extremely popular: 66 percent approve, including 77 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans.
A few other nuggets from the poll, which can be viewed in its entirety on the Quinnipiac site:
- While voters dislike Malloy’s policies by 50-37 percent, they like him as a person, 48 percent to 18 percent.
- 32 percent of those polled say Jodi Rell was a better governor than Malloy, while 20 percent say Malloy is better and 37 percent say they’re about the same.
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal continues to be the most popular elected official polled. The Greenwich resident’s approval rating is up five points from 49 percent in March to 54 percent now. His disapproval rating stayed at 25 percent.
- At 45 percent, Joe Lieberman has the highest disapproval rating of any official polled — one point higher than both Malloy and Obama. The senior senator’s approval rating is at 41 percent, slightly up from March, when it stood at 38 percent.
- President Obama’s numbers are better this time around. 53 percent approve of his performance, up from 49 percent last month and considerably higher than his approval rating in the country as a whole, which has hovered in the mid-to-high 40s in most polls. The president’s disapproval rating is at 44 percent — slightly lower than the 47 percent he scored in March.
- There are no signs that Connecticut will be anything other than a solid blue state in the 2012 presidential election. By a 51-43 percent, voters say Obama deserves to be re-elected, while voters prefer him over a generic Republican 46 percent to 35.