Governor Kate Brown’s approval rating plummeted after a year in which she led the state during a pandemic, which followed the recession, protests for racial justice, violent far-right demonstrations and anarchists and historic forest fires, shows new research.
Even before last year’s unprecedented challenges, voters in Oregon, largely blue, gave the Democratic governor surprisingly bad reviews: his negative job rating was 54% in a October 2019 DHM Research Portland poll.
At the start of the pandemic, Oregon residents’ view of the governor improved significantly and his approval rating reached the 54% watermark, according to a DHM Research survey a year ago.
New research, conducted in early March and released by DHM Research on Thursday, found that the optimistic view has been completely eroded. Only 37% of participants have a positive view of the governor and 57% have a negative view of her. Both voting and non-voting adults were included in the survey, which included a sample from a sample of Oregon residents.
The governor’s initial decision to prioritize injections for teachers rather than protect Oregon senior citizens living outside care facilities may have undermined his position. Oregon’s inhabitants were divided equally, 46% to 45%, on that connection. More than half of respondents with school-age children supported Brown’s decision, but only 41% of people aged 65 and over agreed with it.
Sixty-five percent of people in the survey approved the governor’s decision to order all schools to resume face-to-face classes for elementary school students by March 29. Two-thirds also indicated that they are in favor of the governor’s position to allow some room for maneuver based on local school council union decisions and negotiations.
Oregon residents were largely divided on whether the state is going in the right direction, with 45% saying the Portland Oregon research firm is on the wrong track and 40% saying the state is going in the right direction. The division was more sharply divided by party this month than at any time during the pandemic, DHM’s findings showed, with 68% of Democrats saying Oregon is going in the right direction, but only 19% of Republicans saying so.
Researchers asked a wide variety of other questions, including whether Oregon residents approve or disapprove of a series of proposals that the Legislature is considering and whether the six seats in Congress that the state is likely to have after redistricting with the new population count of US census must lean towards Democrats or Republicans. .
Surprisingly, a plurality of voters across all party lines – 37% – said that exactly half of the electoral districts should lean towards Democrats and exactly half towards Republicans. A majority – 56% – said that both parties should have at least two districts that are likely to send a member of their party to Congress. This is very different from the status quo, where only one of Oregon’s five representatives is a Republican.
The online survey was conducted from March 7 to 14 and involved 600 Oregon residents age 18 and older, with their political affiliations, gender and other demographic data weighted to reflect the state’s population. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
DHM Research, a non-partisan company, conducted the research at its own expense as a public service.
Among the most surprising results of the survey was the level of support for two proposals that have little momentum in the Legislature, a plan to raise millions of dollars for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse by raising alcohol taxes, and a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage to $ 17 an hour.
House Bill 3296, originally sponsored by Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-Portland and Rep. Rachel Prusak, D-West Linn, would increase the wholesale beer and cider tax from $ 2.60 a barrel to $ 72.60 and increase wine tax of 65 cents to $ 10.65 per gallon. Prusak withdrew his support for the bill earlier this month after meeting with voters and representatives of the beer and wine industry, the Wilsonville spokesman said.
On the other hand, more than half of the Oregon residents surveyed approved of raising taxes on beer, wine and cider to pay for the expansion of mental health and substance abuse services, the survey found. The survey did not mention the magnitude of the proposed increases, however, and this was one of the main reasons cited by opponents of the project.
The minimum wage proposal also faces an uncertain outlook, as its five sponsors are in their first year in the legislature and the top Democrats have not identified it among their priorities. But 52% of Oregon residents told researchers they would support a $ 17 hourly minimum wage across the state next year.
The statewide survey also revealed a lack of support for a proposal that has staunch supporters in the Portland area: Prohibit the police from using pepper spray unless they officially declare a riot. Only 44% of the people who participated in the poll said they supported the idea. However, younger and older Oregon residents were quite divided on the issue. Among those aged 44 or under, about 55% support this ban. But among those 45 and older, only 35 do so. The inhabitants and men of rural Oregon also indicated that they were strongly opposed.
Sixty percent of respondents said they want the state to extend the COVID-19 moratorium until September 1, 2021. A much larger share – 73% – said that the state should create a tax credit for landlords who lost their rent due to tenants’ inability to pay. Congress and the legislature have approved more than $ 500 million in aid to get Oregon tenants to pay their owners, but the state has struggled to distribute the money to people in a timely manner. Separately, state lawmakers in December allocated $ 150 million to seed a new compensation fund for landowners. Oregon counties and cities are receiving millions more in rental assistance from the federal government, which will eventually reach landowners.
Forty percent of people surveyed said that state taxes are at the right level today, 34% said taxes and utilities should be cut, and only 12% said the government spends very little on services and should raise taxes. The research question did not specify whether the tax increase would be for companies or employees.
Democrats in the legislature focused this session on revoking new corporate tax incentives that Oregon automatically copied from federal tax cuts last year, but those proposals face significant setbacks. Lawmakers on both sides have expressed interest in undoing the increase in state tax liability that some individuals may face as a result of receiving federal stimulus payments.
When it comes to weapons policies, the majority of respondents, 59%, said they would support a bill that would allow local governments, including school districts, to ban weapons in their buildings.
After a year of online learning for most students in the state, people’s view of teachers was much more favorable than the view of unions representing teachers, with 70% approval against 51%. Fifty-two percent said they approved the local school district’s response to the COVID-19 crisis against only 31% who disapproved.
– Hillary Borrud; [email protected]; @hborrud
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