Is the Louisiana Gov. getting popular or unpopular?
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Two conflicting reports were released on Monday that show Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) at vastly different levels of popularity within his home state.
A survey conducted last week by the Republican Party, to which Jindal belongs, puts his approval rating at 50%, and that 55% of Louisianans support Jindal’s opposition of Obamacare, the controversial universal healthcare legislation that the president pushed through Congress in March of 2010. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by Conservative Intel and Harper Polling has Jindal’s approval rating at 35%, with a staggering 51% un-approval rating.
The breakdown of the GOP poll shows that 31% of citizens polled say they “somewhat approve” of Jindal’s leadership of their state, while 19% say they “strongly approve;” the numbers combine to form the 50% approval rating listed.
The Conservative Intel and Harper Polling report, on the other hand, paints a far less flattering portrait of the governor. When asked “In an election for President in 2016, would you most likely support Bobby Jindal, Republican, or Hillary Clinton, Democrat?” 42% answered that they would support Jindal, but 44% voiced their support for Clinton. Even more damaging, when asked “Do you want Bobby Jindal to run for President in 2016,” only 20% said “Yes” while 58% answered “No.”
Jindal has always been an outspoken member of the GOP whose name has come up frequently in recent years as a potential candidate for presidency. He was elected governor of Louisiana on October 20th, 2007, and won re-election four years later in a landslide primary, in which he won 66% of the votes.
In 2008, his name was mentioned by some, including conservative talk show mogul Rush Limbaugh, as a potential running mate for John McCain, but that never came to fruition. Although Jindal has said that it’s still far too early to be considering a run for the White House, there are whispers that preparations are being made within the party behind closed doors. These new numbers, however, may be a curveball that Republicans were not expecting.
Jindal is not the only Indian-American politician in the Republican Party to feel the political heat recently – South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) has also been in hot water of late.
A Winthrop University poll from this past April put her approval rating at a low 44%, with a 37% disapproval score. On top of that, South Carolina’s unemployment rate remained over 8% in July, in addition to laying off 4,000 employees from their already low labor force. Haley ran on the platform of creating more jobs for the state, a promise Democrats have been slamming her for not keeping. Yet Republicans insist that Haley is on solid ground for her upcoming re-election bid.
The Republican Party has been going full-steam ahead to secure more seats in Congress and win more state elections around the country. Jindal has been at fundraising events for Haley’s re-election campaign this month, both to help her defend her position as governor but also, some say, to begin raising his profile for an upcoming presidential bid. It remains to be seen how the two fare; Haley’s next election will be in 2014.
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