A poorly-handled winter storm cleanup, a $2 billion state budget “structural deficit” and a proposed hike in the sales tax have put a small dent in the popularity of Gov. Ed Rendell, according to a poll taken just days after the St. Valentine’s Day snow and ice debacle that closed interstates in the eastern part of the state.

The new Triad Strategies/Susquehanna Polling survey (download the results) showed Rendell’s approval rating at 54 percent, down somewhat from his career high of 59 percent recorded in the Fall Triad/Susquehanna Poll, shortly before his landslide re-election over Republican Lynn Swann.

 Highlights of the survey of 700 registered and frequent Pennsylvania voters conducted between Feb. 15 and 20:

• Rendell’s approval rating in the February survey stood at 54 percent, 5 points off his career high 59 percent approval rating he clocked in October 2006 while he was spending millions on commercials to promote his landslide re-election.  In fact, the 5-point gap is only slightly above the survey’s 3.7 percent margin of error.  The February 2007 mark is also substantially higher than the 49 percent approval he received in the April 2006 poll.
• On his initiatives to plug the state’s revenue gap, he faces an uphill fight on the concept of increasing the state sales tax from 6 to 7 percent and a steeper climb to win support for his proposal to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to set up a trust fund that could return as much as $1 billion a year in earnings to the state to meet transportation and transit needs.
• His proposal to help reduce health care costs by encouraging hospitals and others to set up urgent care clinics to provide an alternative to costly trips to hospital emergency rooms got a very positive response with 77 percent saying they were likely or very likely to use such facilities.
• A total of 61 percent applaud his proposal to increase state funding for pre-kindergarten education programs by $75 million (30 percent oppose).
• Windmills – part of the Governor’s alternative energy initiatives – also won strong support with 78 percent in favor compared to 11 percent opposed and 10 percent undecided.
• The approval rating for the state legislature remains at relatively low ebb.  Overall, 30 percent of Pennsylvania voters surveyed said they approve of the job the state House and Senate are doing in Harrisburg.  A total of 45 percent disapprove.  On the plus side, it seems to be on an upward trend with the approve/disapprove ratio moving from 23/52 in April 2006 to 28/50 in October 2006 to 30/45 in February.

“A lesser political leader would have been badly bruised by what happened in February,” said Roy Wells, president of Triad Strategies. “A budget with a huge ‘structural deficit,’ a proposed increase in the state sales tax and a botched clean-up of a major snowstorm yet he takes only a hit of a few percentage points.  That’s impressive.”

 The survey director, James Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research, “He takes a hit in most regions of the state but continues to be show strength in Philadelphia and the southeastern counties..”  He noted that where the highway closures hit hardest – the Anthracite Region, the Poconos and the Lehigh Valley – Rendell’s approval/disapproval ratio in April 2006 was 51/37.  His popularity peaked in the October 2006 poll at 62/27.  In the February poll, he registered 42-38.

The poll indicated that Pennsylvania voters remain concerned about taxes.  One in three voters say that taxes are the single most important issue they want officials in Harrisburg to address.  In the Northwest, where the Governor’s popularity is high, only one in four voters see taxes as the biggest issue.  In the South Central Pennsylvania and Southwestern Pennsylvania counties outside of Allegheny County, where 42 percent and 41 percent of the voters identified taxes as the top issue, Rendell’s approval rating has ebbed 39 and 42 percent.  In Philadelphia, the Rendell stronghold, only one in eight named taxes as the top issue with one in four choosing drugs, crime and violence as the biggest problem for Harrisburg to tackle.