41% of voters denounce Ige’s work
About half of Hawaii voters have a favorable impression of Democratic Gov. David Ige, but just one year into his administration, a significant chunk of people say he is not doing a good job.
A statewide survey of registered Hawaii voters found that 48 percent approve of the job Ige is doing, while 41 percent disapprove.
Hawaiian voters are most critical of Ige, with more than half of the Hawaiians surveyed saying they don’t approve of his job performance. A significant number of Filipino-American voters are also displeased, with 44 percent saying they disapprove of the job Ige is doing.
Japanese-American voters tend to be considerably more pleased with the performance of the governor, with 67 percent statewide saying they approve of the job Ige is doing.
The Hawaii Poll, conducted Dec. 28-Jan. 9 by Ward Research Inc. on cellphones and landlines, included 619 registered voters statewide. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 points.
Ige said he is not surprised at the results.
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“There’s lots of challenges that I hear in the community each and every day as we’re out meeting and talking with people,” Ige said in an interview Friday. “We have been working to make things right, to make things happen.”
Colin Moore, director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said Ige’s job disapproval numbers appear to be driven in part by unhappiness with Ige’s support for construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Hawaii island, and by concern over the problem of homelessness.
Ige supports development of the $1.4 billion telescope, but that project is opposed by most Hawaiian voters. Most of the Hawaiians surveyed also contend the homelessness problem has gotten worse over the past year.
Moore said Ige’s job approval rating after a year in office “isn’t terrible, but it’s nothing to be superproud of,” particularly considering Ige’s very strong showing in his dramatic 2014 primary election victory over fellow Democrat former Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
“In a one-party state where he overwhelmingly defeated an incumbent governor, I would have expected his number to be a bit better than this,” Moore said. The administration still hasn’t faced a major public policy crisis, “so if this represents a trend and he doesn’t turn these numbers around, particularly on homelessness, I expect him to kind of continually slowly decline.”
Ige said the homeless and TMT issues are complex, lingering problems. “Those are two of the top-of-mind issues that we definitely walked into,” he said.
“You know, there’s lots of challenges when I walk into the office, things that have been persistent in our community for a long time that we’ve been focused on working on, and there are no easy answers,” he said. “It’s really about working through the challenges one at a time.”
Despite some voters’ unhappiness with Ige’s job performance, 50 percent of those surveyed said they have a favorable overall opinion of the governor, while 36 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of him.
Again, Ige was most popular with Japanese-American voters, with more than two-thirds reporting they have a favorable opinion of him. He was least popular with Hawaiian voters, with 53 percent of Hawaiians saying they have an unfavorable opinion of Ige.
The poll found 40 percent of voters statewide have a favorable opinion of Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui, but another 44 percent said either they have never heard of Tsutsui or they do not know enough about him to have an opinion.
Tsutsui is better known and better liked on the neighbor islands, where 46 percent said they have a favorable opinion of him. Tsutsui grew up on Maui and still lives there.
The poll showed that U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is by far the most popular member of Hawaii’s delegation to Congress, with three-quarters of the registered voters in her rural Oahu and neighbor island congressional district reporting they have a favorable opinion of her.
Gabbard, a Democrat, enjoys a rare degree of bipartisan support. Eighty percent of those voters in her district who usually vote for Democratic candidates reported they have a favorable opinion of her, while 71 percent of those who tend to vote for Republicans said they have a favorable opinion of Gabbard.
That portion of the poll included 306 registered voters in Congressional District 2. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5.6 points.
Gabbard said in an emailed statement that “I am grateful and humbled by the continued support of the people I serve, and will always work to make sure their voice is heard in our nation’s capital.”
Democratic U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono both have relatively high approval ratings, with 58 percent of the voters statewide reporting they have a favorable view of Hirono, and 57 percent reporting a favorable view of Schatz.
Another 21 percent said they have an unfavorable view of Schatz, who is running for re-election this year, and 22 percent of the voters said either they have never heard of Schatz or don’t know enough about him to form an opinion.
“We’ve had a productive year for Hawaii, and I’m honored by the support from the community for my efforts,” Schatz said in a written statement in response to the poll results.
That portion of the poll was conducted statewide and included 619 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 points.
U.S. Rep. Mark Takai, who represents urban Honolulu, earned a favorable opinion from 54 percent of the voters polled. Takai, who was elected to Congress in 2014, remains the least-known member of the Hawaii delegation, with 30 percent of the voters in his district reporting either they have never heard of him or don’t know enough about him to form an opinion.
“It is an honor to fight for Hawaii in Washington and I look forward to continuing our work this year to strengthen our national security, support local entrepreneurs and innovators, help students struggling to pay their student loan bills, and build an economy that gives every family a chance to get ahead,” Takai said in a written statement.
That portion of the Hawaii Poll included 313 registered voters in Congressional District 1. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5.5 points.
60 responses to “41% of voters denounce Ige’s work”
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“Ige supports development of the $1.4 billion telescope, but that project is opposed by most Hawaiian voters.”
When and where was this poll conducted?
As long as SA and Ward Research are in cahoots, I don’t care to read or believe any of this ca-ca.
Keep voting party and you’ll have the same results. Remember who voted for him, the Party without a luau but a lot of pork.
There is really only one party to vote for in this nation. The republican party has abandoned its values snd while the democrats may be far from perfect, no telling what republicans would do except give tax cuts to the rich. Shame republicans cannot offer anything worth considering.
Boots the broken record.
You do realize that quite a bit of Democrats in Hawaii would be Republicans in other states right? And some Republicans would be Democrats in other states. Lingle for example would be a Democrat pretty much everywhere else. Mercado Kim would be a Republican in Maine.
Same old, same old.
Yes Keolu I am a broken record. It is a shame that republicans have abandoned their values and are now little more than socialists for the rich. Why would anyone vote for such communism?
You rather vote for liberals who make like the easter bunny giving away our tax dollars and inviting in illegal immigrants to the US and then giving them welfare. Those are Boot’s values.
Keolu, you do realize one of the biggest drains of welfare in this state is from COFA immigrants who can legally come here under the agreement the Federal Government struck during the Cold War? None of that can be blamed on Hawaii politicians of either party.
Boots, you’re saying that there are no rich Democrats?
Democrats – the party of the people.
Boots can talk all he wants, because he is making a lot of sense.
Why play the RACE CARD? calculating/printing which ethnicity agrees or disagrees with the Gov. work so far? We are Americans! INSANE
Where poll results for the other races (Chinese, Korean, Haoles,…) /
It’s not easy pleasing everyone with such a limited budget.
Yeah, they sunk all the money into a train.
winnah
SCREAMING HEADLINE says “41% of voters denounce Ige’s work”
Second sentence in article says “A statewide survey of registered Hawaii voters found that 48 percent approve of the job Ige is doing, while 41 percent disapprove.”
What the heck is the newspaper doing?
And later in the article, it states, “50 percent of those surveyed said they have a favorable overall opinion of the governor.” I guess the headline could have been – 50% of voters *approve* Ige’s work.” Interesting…
Yep that is one of the weirdest headlines yet. Shows you the leanings of the SA editorial board.
The only good news to report is the bad news. That’s all the news media works.
ONE TERM GOVERNOR!!! FOZZIE BEAR THE DO NOTHING GOVERNOR!!
The dumb voters will re-elect him. Problem is that he’s not a leader. Statues are made of leaders, not committees.
Why is he dumb? But who would replace him? Certainly no one on the republican side is worth considering.
He is not dumb but he kinda plods along making sure to mostly follow public sentiment. No innovative ideas, no risk taking, and not much done in any dramatic fashion.
The Sheep are CLUELESS and keep voting for the same F O O L S. Nothing will change at this rate !
much truth in that. The monopoly party has served this state very poorly in recent years.
The nation as a whole only has one party to vote for if one believes in freedom. The republican party has abandoned republican principles and will probably go the way of the Whigs. Have you read any of the propaganda put out by republicans? They are out to lunch. Paranoid to the max. Democrats may be far from perfect but remember things can be far worse which they will be if republicans get in. Don’t forget that G W Bush crashed the economy into the worst recession since the great depression. This is a real accomplishment but one I would like to avoid happening again.
Can’t defend Hawaii’s Democrats without bashing the Republicans? Just replace Republicans in your rant with Hawaii Democrats and it’ll be just as true.
Quit blaming GW. Even though Clinton handed GW with a surplus, it was Summers, Rubin and Greenspan that shut down the CFTC from investigating the derivatives and credit default swaps. All this occurred during the waning years of the Clinton administration.
True but I do not see the monopoly party out here as being “Democrats.” Kleptocrats?
Sadly Windward, Hawaii democrats have been weakened by republicans who fled their party and became democrats because their old party became too extreme.
Baloney, the state has had tremendous growth under Democrats.
Ige has a higher favorability rating than his unfavorable rating. He’s likely to get re-elected.
Even the Republicans are voting for the Democrats.
Oahu base of 433!!! Hahaha…are these the same people used in the rail poll?
Interesting. Go off on a trip and come back and find that the majority of Hawaiian voters are opposed to the telescope. Last survey I saw showed that Hawaiians were basically split on this with 48 opposed to 42 in favor. When was a poll done that showed the majority of Hawaiian voters were against it? Sad that there is so much ignorance about this telescope.
Didn’t vote for the guy and yet, he’s doing better than I thought he would.
Ige seems like a caretaker administration, holding the seat warm and keeping things running at an acceptable rate until someone with a vision takes over. Also, Ige seems desperate to avoid the mistakes Ambercrombie made in how he went about the business of the Governor, which is why his administration seems so timid.
Let’s just be honest, Ige doesn’t have much charisma and there is only so much an engineer can do without the support of the legislature.
And it’s fairly ridiculous to hold Ige responsible for the homeless. That’s an issue so much bigger than one person and we must question if it even can be solved at all.
We are mostly in agreement in opinion of Ige. He and his administration better start thinking out of the box to solve the homeless situation because although not his fault it IS spiraling out of control under HIS tenure as Governor.
We are at the brink of bringing it under control. About 20,000 units have been approved for Hoopili and Koa Ridge. And there is lots of part-up demand for high density housing arround rail stations. And there is lots of part-up demand for high density housing arround rail stations. This is housing for about 160,000 residents. The state can help by not stealing 10% of the rail surcharge..
@we-licky, Cool, those 20,000 units approved for Hoopili and Koa Ridge are for the homeless? Free? Who is going to pay the $700,000.00+ bill for each of these homes you say are allocated for the homeless?
heh. not on your life. Can’t believe wiliki doesn’t actually read what he posts. “20K units” – definitely not for the homeless. Heck they’re not even for most Hawaii residents.
We can’t afford any more “visions”
IRT Wiliki – You sound like the PRP commercial about the Kakaako construction. Yea, there’s a lot of pent up demand alright.
U.S. Senators and Representatives from Hawaii have the most favorable ratings because voters don’t hear or know much about them. —- Ige, TMT is not a complex issue. TMT got all its paperwork and permits together other the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating a permit issued by BLNR. Why the permits issued by State agencies are so often ruled invalid is a big concern. A bigger concern is why the Attorney General so often gives inadequate Attorney General representation to State agencies and why, if they did give representation, the Supreme Court so often overrules the Attorney General’s advice. Or is it the Supreme Court deciding who it wants to win and coming up with some aspect of the whole process the agency pursued and say it was invalid. They do that frequently, e.g. invalidating the Super Ferry permit for a simple short coming which could have been overcome quickly with a new proceeding on the short coming, which the State Legislature conveniently doesn’t get around to fixing. Why everybody didn’t keep pushing the matter baffles me, including the Super ferry administrators and lawyers and most of all the Legislature. The behind the scenes thinking and lack of action still baffles me. I think most Legislative Senators/Representatives were relieved that they could drop the issue.
Colin Moore, director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has it all wrong. Public is not unhappy with Ige’s support for construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Hawaii island. Public is upset he could not make a decision when the first protestors started breaking laws. Ige hid in his office, would not come out, would not do anything.
Then when he did come out he kept waffling, flip flopping, could not make and stay with a decision. He willfully failed to provide the leadership to handle the backwards protesters. Basically letting them walk all over him, he looked impotent.
Governor has to be a take charge leader. Didn’t happen. Time to find a replacement who can meet the standards.
Even if a person does not like or approve of these elected officials, how is it that some people “never heard” of them? It really makes me wonder what other people in our community are paying attention to, and whether they are sufficiently informed to make decisions when it’s time to vote. Or maybe these are non-voters? I would think that these variables are important to know about when interpreting these surveys/polls.
So the report card on the Ige administration’s first year in office is 40-50%. That’s at best a D- at worst an F. Nearly every week there are news grabbing headlines of our mis-managed and wasteful State government. Is there at least one State department that is at least average? Mr. Ige promised to “re-engineer” State government. So far that has not happened. Perhaps he will become a one term wonder like his predecessor?
Hmm, positive note is that he saves money…..by not implementing any innovative actions to solve problems? Imperative action seems to be equal to wait it out and see if it goes away?
http://Www.twitter.com/impeachige
A disgrace to the human race. America’s Greatest embarassment.
In Washington, partisanship results in things not getting done. In Hawaii, is it culture and partisanship? Or, at the end of the day, is it all really the same thing?
Ige has had time to get his bearings but now has to get moving on promises he made starting with the upcoming legislative session which starts tomorrow.
If by this time this year, nothing has changed, he will be toast and as already speculated, he may indeed simply holding the place for someone else in the wings.
White or whole wheat toast?
Re: Ige – Very UNfavorable.
Re: Schatz – Very favorable
Re: Takai – Very favorable
Re: Gabbard – Neutral
Re: Hirono – Neutral
Way to fight for Hawaii in Washington Mark Takai… by writing letters to allow you to wear your Aloha shirt… W T F is that?!?
YOU FORGOT TO POLL AULANI KAAIHUE, HAWAII’S FAVORITE #1 CANDIDATE FOR HONOLULU MAYOR.
AS FOR IGE, HE’S GOT TO GO, I HEARD THERE’S A PETITION OUT TO IMPEACH HIM. AND I DEFINITELY SIGNED IT.
HE’S AN EMBARASSMENT TO HAWAII AND TO AMERICA. SOUNDS LIKE KERMIT, I HEARD. AND HE LOOKS LIKE THE YAKUZA.
I DON’T TRUST HIM, HEARD HE TRIED TO STEAL SOME YOUNG PRETTY HAWAIIANS WOMAN LANDS. HE’S GOT TO GO BACK TO TOKYO!! AND EAT THAT FUKUSHIMA RADIATED FISH.
No time to read the article right now, but that is a higher rating that our President right now.
Come on, Star-Advertiser. You have a poll that says 50% of voters are favorably disposed toward Governor Ige, and 36% are unfavorably disposed, and your headline reads “41% of voters denouce Ige’s work”? First of all, it’s not up to you to add the plus-or-minus number as a plus. It could also have been a minus (i.e. 31% unfavorable.) And why be so negative? No one is ‘denouncing’ anyone, and 50% (which could be as much as 55%) favorable is not all that bad. If you want to run an anti-Ige article, do it on the editorial page, where it belongs.