Maybe it was the bungled Election Day, or the Stand Your Ground backlash, or the drug testing programs gone awry, or just the fact that he still looks like a cyborg sent from the future to slash entitlement programs. Either way, Gov. Rick Scott continues posting historically bad poll numbers.
A new Quinnipiac poll out this morning finds Scott with an "awful" 36 percent approval rating. Even a majority of Republican voters want someone else to run for governor. Charlie Crist, meanwhile, polls best among Democratic challengers.
The poll found that Florida voters disapprove of the job Scott is doing by a whopping 45-36 percent margin, with 52 percent saying he doesn't deserve a second term.
The most striking indictment against Scott comes from Republican voters, who say 52-30 percent that they'd like someone to challenge Scott for governor in 2014.
"Scott's ratings with voters are just plain awful. The numbers cannot be sugar-coated," Peter A. Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, says in a release. "When voters in a politician's own party want him to be challenged in a primary by another candidate, it's difficult to see it as anything but outright rejection."
The poll also took a look at Democratic challengers and found Crist leading the pack. The former Republican governor was seen favorably 47-33 percent among all voters, with a 65 percent approval from Dems and 48 percent of independents in his corner. (Republicans, predictably, are less crazy about the former GOP member, with a negative 56-28 percent result.)
Alex Sink, who lost to Scott last time around, does OK with voters, polling favorably 27-14 percent, but 54 percent have already forgotten who she is.
Despite the fact that GOP voters would like to see a new candidate challenge Scott, he does still hold a favorable view inside the party by a 55-18 percent margin.
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