Jindal’s poll numbers tank in Louisiana, bad news for 2016

Coming off some seriously high approval numbers in the past few years, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal appears to have cratered in terms of job approval and it could spell trouble for his 2016 ambitions.

Report from RealClearPolitics:

Louisiana law bars Bobby Jindal from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 2015. But for the ambitious Republican, who has long had his sights set on national office, being term-limited could be a blessing in disguise.

According to a survey released Wednesday by the Democratically affiliated Public Policy Polling, Jindal’s approval rating among state voters has sunk to 28 percent — with 59 percent of respondents disapproving of the job he is doing.

Those numbers are bad enough, but they are astonishing in light of a poll PPP conducted three years ago, shortly after the BP oil spill devastated the state’s Gulf Coast shoreline, that showed Jindal to be one of the most popular governors in the country.

The latest survey bestows upon him the dubious distinctions of being the most unpopular Republican governor of any state and the second most unpopular governor overall.

Perhaps the worst part of the PPP poll for Jindal is the result showing a hypothetical loss in his own state to Hillary Clinton if he were the Republican nominee.

… Jindal trails Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical 2016 general election matchup by a margin of 47 percent to 40 percent in his home state.

Typically Governors like to come off successful re-elections and/or, at least, very high approval numbers in their home state prior to launching a presidential bid. In Jindal’s case, he can’t run for re-election due to term limits and unless he can turn his numbers around, he’ll leave office without much statewide support for a presidential run.

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Nate Ashworth

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for over a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016 that continues today.

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