Gov. Dan McKee is seen speaking at a press conference on the successes of the 988 Lifeline in Rhode Island on May 20, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Despite the grilling Gov. Dan McKee received during a Tuesday morning press conference on the Washington Bridge, a new University of Rhode Island poll unveiled hours earlier suggests the sitting governor has reversed his recent plunge in approval ratings.
About 55% of the 500 residents surveyed approved of the way McKee was handling the job as governor, compared with 45% who disapproved, according to the Rhode Island Survey Initiative poll conducted by YouGov. The 80-question survey, conducted online from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15, had a 6.02% margin of error.
It’s in stark contrast to other recent surveys, where McKee has seen declining favorability, related in part to his handling of the Washington Bridge closure and rebuild.
Just a third of participants approved of McKee’s performance, according to a Sept. 30 poll by the Pell Center at Salve Regina University. More than half, 56%, somewhat or strongly disapproved.
McKee scored even lower among residents in a July poll by the University of New Hampshire, with 65% of residents disapproving of the sitting governor, while just 29% expressed approval.
Has McKee made a sudden comeback?
Not likely, according to Adam Myers, associate professor of political science at Providence College. Myers instead pointed to differences between the poll language and methodology as reasons why the URI poll shows a surge in popularity for the previously unpopular governor.
Most importantly, the URI poll does not appear to give survey participants options other than disapprove or approve of McKee’s handling of the job.
“There’s no way that 100% of the people who were interviewed had an opinion,” Myers said. “He is not a very high-profile governor.”
In contrast, the Salve poll showed 10% of voters had no strong opinion about the governor; 6% of survey participants in the UNH poll indicated the same.
Last year, URI included options for survey participants to answer “neither” or “don’t know” when asked about the governor’s performance, said Emily Lynch, professor of political science at URI.
“With those, we really didn’t have a clear understanding of how people felt,” Lynch said.
Survey designers opted for a “forced choice” this year to better gauge McKee’s popularity, with the intent of measuring this year’s results against future polls in what is planned to be an annual initiative.
Lynch cautioned against comparing results of URI’s poll to other surveys due to differences in question wording as well as weighting of participants across various demographic and partisan groups.
Kamala Harris led Donald Trump by 26 percentage points among URI survey participants, versus the 14-percentage-point lead Harris held in the Salve Regina poll. Another poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group for Rhode Island Current in September showed Harris with a 12-percentage-point lead over Trump. Meanwhile, a UNH poll also published in September put Harris 20 percentage points ahead of Trump among Rhode Island voters.
“Ours may be weighed a bit more toward liberal voters,” Lynch said.
Unlike its counterparts, the URI poll also sets itself apart by surveying the general adult population of the state, rather than the narrower scope of likely voters used by other pollsters. Of the 500 residents surveyed in the URI poll, 88% were registered to vote. More than half, 54% identified as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic, versus 23% Republican or Republican-leaning independents. The remaining 18% identified as down-the-middle independents.
Other highlights of the URI poll include:
Six in 10 respondents worry that artificial intelligence will hurt elections, with concerns across party affiliation centered on AI-generated political media known as “deep fakes;”
Over four in 10 survey takers support using ranked-choice voting for Rhode Island’s presidential primaries, though just as many don’t approve or disapprove;
Housing, roads and bridges, and health care are the top three priorities that survey takers want to see the governor and the state legislature address this year;
If limited to one source for political and election news, respondents favored Fox News first (14%) followed by CNN (13%) and WPRI (12%);
23% correctly identified K. Joseph Shekarchi as Rhode Island House Speaker, the rest did not know or gave an incorrect answer
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