For a Democratic governor in the deep red South, Gov. John Bel Edwards is doing a pretty good job—or, at least half of Louisiana apparently thinks so.
Fifty percent of Louisianians have a favorable opinion of Edwards, according to Morning Consult’s latest Governor Approval rankings, which is down six percentage points from the last quarter of 2017.
That means the Amite native is no longer the most popular Democratic governor in the nation—a title he claimed in the last quarter of 2017—but he’s still in the top five.
With a 55% approval rating, Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is now the most popular of his party colleagues. He is followed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Edwards’ 50% favorable ranking is tied with Delaware Gov. John Carney and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
Of course, Edwards has his critics, who, are on the rise: 31% of Louisianans who participated in the first quarter survey say they disapprove of his leadership, up from 27% the previous quarter. Roughly the same percentage of people don’t have an opinion on his governorship, with 19% claiming indifference in the first quarter, down slightly from the 18% who said as much in the fourth quarter of last year.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, is the country’s most popular governor, according to the survey. As with the last quarterly survey, all of the 10 most popular governors in the most recent survey are Republicans.
Morning Consult, a media and technology company, ranks all 50 governors based on the results of a national poll it conducts quarterly. The company interviewed over 275,000 voters from across the country between January and March 2018 for the latest survey.
