New Pa. poll shows most voters view state, country on wrong track

Morning Call (Allentown, PA)

Feb. 24--WASHINGTON -- Ask Pennsylvania voters what is the most important problem facing the state and the nation, and what do you hear?

It's not the Obamacare repeal that Congress is tackling, or the immigration policies that President Donald Trump issued in his first few days in office. Even jobs were further down the list.

Respondents see politicians and government as the biggest problems in a new poll by Franklin & Marshall College of Lancaster, which contacted 816 people between Feb. 15 and 19. The survey's margin of error is plus/minus 5 percentage points.

Thinking nationally, 41 percent of respondents pointed to government/politicians as the big problem, followed by immigration at 10 percent and foreign policy/terrorism/war at 7 percent.

Thinking on the state level, government/politicians scored at 24 percent, followed by education/schools at 16 percent and unemployment/personal finances at 12 percent as top problems.

Two-thirds of the respondents said the United States is on the wrong track, while 52 percent said the same about Pennsylvania.

Financially, six in 10 say they and their family are in the same spot as a year ago. Fewer than half expect that to improve in the next year.

Amid that bleak atmosphere, the new president, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey all drew job-approval ratings in the 30s.

Thirty-seven percent believe that Casey, a Democrat who will be on the ballot next year, is doing an excellent or good job on Capitol Hill. And 45 percent say he's doing a fair or poor job as senator.

Wolf, a Democrat who also faces re-election next year, had 38 percent saying he is doing an excellent or good job, with 54 percent rating his performance as fair or poor. The rating is an improvement over how voters saw him a year ago amid the state budget impasse and similar to where former Gov. Ed Rendell, also a Democrat, was at the same point in his tenure.

Thirty-two percent see Republican Trump as doing an an excellent or good job, while 67 percent said he's doing a fair or poor job.

His approval rating is lower than that of Democratic President Barack Obama in February 2009. Obama had 55 percent viewing him as doing an excellent or good job.

Among Republicans, 61 percent said Trump is doing an excellent or good job, a rating he received from only 9 percent of Democrats. He drew a positive job rating from 35 percent of voters registered as independents.

Despite relatively low ratings, 51 percent of state voters have confidence in Trump's ability to handle the economy, echoing a theme from his election campaign and surveys leading up to his win.

Franklin & Marshall pollster G. Terry Madonna said the results "reinforced what I thought we saw last fall" when it came to the resonance for Trump on economic issues.

"If we're not in a hot war and the economy improves, there's enough room in the middle for his job performance to rise," Madonna said. "It's largely going to be decided on the health of the economy."

Pennsylvania voters, meanwhile, gave Trump lower ratings on his ability to handle immigration issues and foreign policy.

On immigration, 41 percent were very or somewhat confident in Trump, while 46 percent were not confident at all. He drew similar numbers when it comes to handling America's international relationships, with 38 percent expressing confidence and 47 percent not at all confident.

The pollsters also asked about the most high-profile piece of legislation being drafted in Congress: repealing and replacing Obamacare.

More state voters said the health care law -- which has its highest level of public support nationally in a new Pew Research Center survey -- has made the health care system better than worse, 49 percent to 41 percent. But a larger share -- 28 percent to 19 percent -- said they personally are worse off than before the law.

Six in 10 want to see Congress and the new administration make a few changes to tweak the law, rather than repealing it entirely or leaving the statute unchanged.

"Even Democrats say there are things we can do to make it better," Madonna said of the health care law.

As state lawmakers in Harrisburg debate Wolf's proposal to boost the minimum wage to $12 an hour, most voters say they favor his proposal: 61 percent strongly or somewhat support it, while 37 percent oppose the idea.

The proposal split along party lines, with 83 percent of Democrats and 33 percent of Republicans backing it.

Coming shortly after Wolf's budget speech, the survey shows 24 percent of respondents described the state's financial condition as good, while 54 percent view it as bad. More than half -- 52 percent -- said they are confident in Wolf's ability to handle the state's finances.

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