Some of the people who would be president might have to win without the voters who "know them best,"
Politico reports, identifying a "home-state haters" trend that has 2016 White House aspirants getting low marks from their constituents.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are all struggling with the people who've seen them up close as candidates and officeholders, Politico writes.
Part of the home-state cratering effect is performance-related, with voters disapproving of the job their governor or senator is doing — or did when they were still in office, Politico reports.
And part of it is disapproval of their attempt to trade up.
"People don’t want their home-state politicians to run for president," Democratic pollster Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling told Politico. "They don’t seem to think of their governors or senators as presidents."
Presidential ambition appears to have hurt Christie and Rubio in particular with people back home. Even as Christie has struggled to gain a foothold in the GOP "pre-primary" season, his disapproval ratings in New Jersey have climbed toward the 50 percent mark.
"It seems to people that he doesn’t care about New Jersey," Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray told Politico.
Likewise, Florida voters take a dim view of Rubio's White House ambitions, with just 15 percent in a Mason-Dixon poll saying he should run, compared to 42 percent saying former Gov. Jeb Bush should run.
Where polling shows Bush holding his own in Florida against the early Democratic favorite, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rubio "would lose his home state to Hillary Clinton if the election were held today,"
Politico's Alex Isenstadt writes.
Floridians "don't have any doubt that Jeb is presidential material," Mason-Dixon managing director Brad Coker told Politico.
In the lousy-job-performance category, perhaps nobody fares worse than O'Malley and Jindal.
O'Malley, who may challenge Clinton in the Democratic primary, left office in January after two terms with "record-low approval ratings" and saw himself succeeded by a Republican in a major upset, Politico reports.
Jindal, recently back from a foreign-policy field trip to London, has had below-50 percent approval ratings in successive polls in Louisiana, where he is instituting "painful budget cuts,"
Politico reports.
"We are in an age where people are so disgusted and distrustful of politicians and government, that numbers are down everywhere," Jindal strategist Curt Anderson told Politico.
Not everywhere.
Politico reports that swing-state Republican governors John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, both considered possible 2016 contenders, still poll well at home.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.