It turns out that shifting a purple state as far right as possible may not be a winning political strategy.
Two days after he signed the most restrictive voting law in the country, a new poll shows North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's popularity continuing to plummet. Just 39% of respondents to a Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey released Wednesday said they approved of their Republican governor's performance, while 51% disapproved. That's a jot worse even than the 40-49 split that PPP found last month.
As for the GOP-controlled legislature, it fares even worse. Only 24% of respondents said they approved of what it's doing, while half agreed that lawmakers are turning North Carolina into a "national embarrassment."
In addition to the voting law, McCrory and the legislature have also approved measures that would reduce jobless benefits, reject the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, cut school funding, restrict abortion, and make it easier to execute racial minorities on death row.
The voting law itself is just as unpopular as McCrory, PPP found. In a separate poll released Monday, 39% of respondents said they favored the law, while 50% said they opposed it. The measure would require voters to show a photo ID at the polls, would cut a week of early voting, and end same-day registration, among other restrictions.
In recent presidential elections, North Carolina has been among the most evenly split of any state. It voted narrowly for Barack Obama in 2008 before going for Mitt Romney last year, also narrowly.
PPP, a Democratic polling form based in the Tarheel State, conducted the survey in the days before McCrory signed the law, but the issue has been prominent in the state for weeks, and the governor had long since confirmed his support for the controversial measure.