Kentucky Governor’s Approval Rating During the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, state governments have borne the responsibility of slowing the spread of the virus, while trying to minimize the economic fallout.

Striking an optimal balance between public health and economic considerations during the pandemic has proven to be a politically fraught task — and one that often eluded broad consensus. Public opinion polls show that nearly all state governors have paid a political price for their handling of the coronavirus — though some have navigated the crisis more adroitly than others.

According to an October 2020 poll, about 54% of Kentucky residents either approve or strongly approve of the way Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has handled the coronavirus outbreak in the state. Beshear’s popularity is higher than the average governor approval rating across all 50 states of 48%.

Governor popularity is subject to a wide range of factors, many of which are not quantifiable. However, governors of states with lower than average COVID-19 cases per capita often have higher than average approval ratings — but Beshear is an exception. As of Jan. 10, 2021, there have been a total of 303,625 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Kentucky, or 6,795 for every 100,000 people — in line with the comparable national per capita infection rate of 6,730 per 100,000 people.

Unemployment rates during the coronavirus era can also have a meaningful impact on governor approval ratings. In Kentucky, 5.6% of the labor force was unemployed in November, compared to the national jobless rate of 6.7%.

Since the early days of the pandemic, Beshear’s popularity has suffered. The share of Kentucky residents who approve of the governor’s handling of the virus fell by 25 points between late April and October 2020.

To determine the most and least popular state governors during the COVID-19 pandemic, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the share of state residents who either approve or strongly approve of their governor’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Governors are ranked on approval ratings based on the polling of 119,755 individuals across all 50 states between Oct. 2 and Oct. 25, 2020.

All polling data is from the Nov. 2 2020 report, “The State of the Nation: A 50-State COVID-19 Survey,” a joint survey from Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University, and Northwestern University. Governor approval ratings are as of October 2020. We also reviewed historic approval ratings for the periods of late April, early May, late May, late June, late July, late August, and September 2020.

We also included the most recent monthly seasonally-adjusted unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics as well as the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases from state and local governments in our analysis.