Brownback, Roberts, Moran have high disapproval ratings, according to new poll

A new SurveyUSA pollfinds that Kansas’ Republican political leaders have high job disapproval ratings.

Fifty-eight percent of Kansans disapproved of the job Gov. Sam Brownback was doing while 35 percent approved. U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran had 53 percent and 50 percent disapproval ratings while 35 percent and 37 percent approved, the poll said.

Although within the margin of error, the Republicans’ approval rates were even lower than President Barack Obama’s, a Democrat, who had a 42 percent approval rate and 56 percent disapproval.

The poll also shows that Democrat Paul Davis, who is challenging Brownback in the 2014 election, has low name identification.

Eight of 10 voters were either neutral or had no opinion about Davis when asked if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. In fact, his name ID was so low, the pollsters referred to him as “Paul David” instead of “Paul Davis.”

Davis’ campaign said SurveyUSA planned to re-do that portion of the poll. But Davis’ camp said the point of the poll was that it showed that their candidate at this point lacks name ID.

When the poll asked individuals’ opinion of Brownback, 22 percent were favorable and 47 percent unfavorable, while the remaining were either neutral or had no opinion.

Meanwhile, Davis was at 7 percent with a favorable opinion, 13 percent unfavorable, while 80 percent were either neutral or had no opinion.

In addition, only 29 percent of those polled approved of the job the Republican-dominated Kansas Legislature was doing, while 61 percent disapproved.

The poll of 532 registered voters was released earlier this week and conducted on behalf of KWCH-TV in Wichita. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. Of those polled, 41 percent were Republicans, 30 percent Democrats, and 29 percent independents.