Jerry Brown’s approval rating steady, new poll finds

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Despite a punishing economic environment that has whittled away at the popularity of many elected officials, Gov. Jerry Brown’s favorability rating in California has largely held steady, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

Forty-six percent of voters have a favorable impression of the governor, comparable to findings in April, when 44% favored him, and in July -- right after he signed the state budget -- when the number ticked up to 48%.

Brown drew a higher rating from Latinos -– 54% -- in the new poll, conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov 9.

Brown is almost through the first year of his return engagement as governor. He failed to find Republican support for tax increases to balance the state spending plan, instead relying on rosy revenue projections. He also signed the California Dream Act, making illegal immigrant students at public universities eligible for taxpayer-funded scholarships. Last month, he proposed a sweeping overhaul of public pensions that would curtail retirement benefits for all future and some current government workers.

The survey is a bipartisan project by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science and the Los Angeles Times. It was conducted among 1,500 registered California voters by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and the Republican firm American Viewpoint. The overall margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Stay tuned for more survey results.

-- Nicholas Riccardi in Sacramento