When you’re at the top, as they say, there’s nowhere to go but down. Just ask GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose superstar poll numbers are finally beginning to reveal that he’s human and not some unstoppable, robotic machine capable of political supremacy. Well, at least a little bit.
In a poll released last week by WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, 66 percent of voters surveyed had a favorable opinion of Jindal. That’s down from an August poll conducted by OnMessage and commissioned by the Louisiana Republican Party that showed Jindal’s favorable rating at 76 percent.
Ed Renwick, a New Orleans pollster who carried out the WAFB survey, says Jindal’s on-again/off-again support for a legislative pay raise earlier this year is one of the likely culprits for the fall. But he adds that Jindal is still enjoying a “strangely unusual” popularity for any sitting governor, despite the numerical dip. So, for now, Jindal is safe and still the state’s top Republican. “Nobody ever lost an election with 66 percent,” Renwick says.