1) As "Political Wire" columnist Taegan Goddard notes, some governors saw their political fortunes rise dramatically because of their handling of Katrina's aftermath. Most notably, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Rick Perry of Texas have seen their approval ratings increase substantially. Although Kathleen Blanco's approval rating dropped, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about what Louisiana residents think of the job she's doing. Her base of support is New Orleans, where most residents certainly weren't responding to any opinion polls.
2) A number of Democratic governors are popular in Republican states and vice versa. For example, 69% of Wyoming residents approve of Democratic Dave Freudenthal in a state where George W. Bush took 69% of the vote last year, while Connecticut Republican Jodi Rell wins 75% approval in a state where John Kerry took 54%. These results show that as much as pundits like to divide the country into Republican red and Democratic blue, the reality on the ground is far more complicated.
3) Ethics issues are weighing heavily on the public and likely will throughout the 2006 elections. The six least-popular governors in the country, Taft, Murkowski, Schwarzenegger, Fletcher, Blunt and Blagojevich, all have been accused of ethical lapses. This dynamic is likely to benefit Democrats, both because five of these six are Republicans and because the most prominent federal scandals (Tom DeLay, Valerie Plame) also center around Republicans.
4) That said, Democrats are not taking advantage of Republican missteps. Half of the 20 least- popular governors in the country are Democrats. Thus, talk that the 2006 elections might do for Democrats what the 1994 elections did for Republicans seems premature.
UPDATE (9/21/05): Kos also comments on the SurveyUSA polls and notes that big-state governors are almost universally unpopular.
