Haley struggles to keep ahead of bad polls

South Carolinians have soured on Nikki Haley, turning the relatively new governor from a national Tea Party favorite into a chief executive struggling to maintain support among members of her own party, the latest Winthrop University poll shows.

Only 34.6 percent of those surveyed — 1,073 registered S.C. Democrats, Republicans and independents — said they approved of Haley’s job performance, according to the poll. Far more — 43 percent — said they disapprove of the way the Republican is handling her job as governor. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 2.9 percent percentage points.

Haley’s approval rating is lower than that of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, according to the poll. Obama has a 44.8 percent approval rating in strongly Republican South Carolina, according to the Winthrop poll.

“I’m not shocked at all,” said Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the S.C. Democratic Party. “It’s reflective of her disastrous first year as governor. I’m surprised 1 in 3 South Carolinians believe she’s doing a good job. South Carolinians are waking up to the horrible mistake they made last year.”

The Winthrop poll shows Haley rapidly is losing support among her fellow Republicans.

A slim majority of Republicans — 52.5 percent — approve of the way Haley is handling her job, but almost 22 percent of Republicans said they disapprove of her performance.

That compares with a 69.3 percent approval rating for Haley among Republicans and GOP-leaning voters only three months ago, according to a September Winthrop poll.

Haley’s spokesman Friday sought to brush off the bad poll numbers.

“Governor Haley is focused on adding to the 19,000 new jobs announced this year, fighting and winning for great South Carolina employers like Boeing, and keeping state spending down to responsible levels — poll numbers don’t enter into any of that,” spokesman Rob Godfrey said.

However, poor poll numbers can diminish a governor’s ability to influence state legislators, just as high numbers can increase a governor’s political clout.

Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop and the director of its poll, said Haley’s biggest problems are tied to South Carolina’s weak economy. South Carolina’s jobless rate is one of the highest in the country.

“She is squarely taking the blame for the bad economy, but she has been suffering from a thousand cuts,” Huffmon said. “Those things sort of eat away at her base by attrition.”

While Haley’s numbers are weak, they might not be as weak as they appear, Huffmon added.

Just over 20 percent of those polled said they had no opinion of Haley’s performance. “Of those who have an opinion, her approval rating is 44.6 percent,” Huffmon said.

Harpootlian said Haley’s problems in South Carolina run far deeper than a bad economy. South Carolinians have come to see Haley as dishonest and secretive, he said. “Why do you not use state e-mail and a state phone to conduct state business?” Harpootlian asked. “You do that because you don’t want people to know what you’re doing.”

‘Can she keep her base’?

Haley campaigned on transparency, conducting state business in a way that is open to the public. But she has interpreted the state’s open records law in a way that allows for the deletion of public records. Public record requests submitted to her office reveal scant few e-mails from Haley, and a recent request from The State newspaper found that Haley rarely used her state-issued cellphone.

The governor’s office said Haley uses other methods of communication, including face-to-face meetings and her state office telephone.

Beyond the questions about how Haley conducts state business, other incidents have generated negative headlines for her.

Haley, the first female governor in state history, called a female reporter a “little girl” after the reporter wrote a story on the cost of an economic-development trip Haley and other state officials took to Paris. The trip cost state taxpayers more than $127,000.

Haley said she regretted calling the reporter a “little girl,” but she did not apologize.

“My ‘little girl’ comment was inappropriate, and I regret that,” Haley said. “Everyone can have a bad day. I’ll forgive her bad story, if she’ll forgive my poor choice of words.”

Haley, who has called for drug testing of those seeking unemployment benefits, also was unable to back up a claim she made that half of those who sought work at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site failed drug tests and the remaining half failed reading and writing tests.

Many state legislators, including Republicans, were sharply critical of Haley’s opposition to tax breaks online retailer Amazon was promised in exchange for bringing 1,200 jobs to Lexington County.

S.C. House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington, also hammered away at the governor on the House floor for backing away from a deal he thought he had reached with her on funding for ETV.

The governor’s report cards for state legislators also struck many as petty and self-serving; those who disagreed with the governor received poor grades and those who supported her policies fared better.

Most recently, questions have arisen about Haley’s role in the decision by an agency that she controls to allow a Georgia port to expand, after she received $15,000 in campaign donations at an Atlanta fundraiser. Haley says there was no connection.

“There’s been a lot of bad press,” Huffmon said. “There are a lot of Tea Party folks who thought she would come in and tear through government. The blogs have been tearing her up. That might be a concern about whether she can keep her base.”

‘She makes this easy for us’

Count Tonya Knight, a 47-year-old stay-at-home mother in Lancaster, among those Republicans who are not happy with Haley.

“I don’t really know what she’s done so far,” Knight said. “But what I do know has not been good.”

Knight wants Haley to focus more on K-12 education.

Haley has worked with college officials to come up with a plan to fund colleges and universities based on measurable criteria, including graduation and retention rates.

“That’s all good and well, but you’ve got to get them out of high school first,” Knight said.

Huffmon said Haley’s political fate, like that of Obama’s, is tied to the economy.

“If you’re a Democratic elite, you’re hoping for a good economy so Obama can be re-elected,” Huffmon said. “But that same good economy helps Nikki Haley.”

Haley’s office Friday took particular exception to the poll numbers showing that Obama has a higher job-approval rating in South Carolina than the Republican governor, calling that result not credible.

A national Gallup Poll released last week showed Obama’s approval rating was at 42 percent, lower than his 44.8 percent approval rating in South Carolina, according to the Winthrop poll.

Obama won about 45 percent of the S.C. vote during the 2008 presidential election.

With Haley’s poll numbers down, Harpootlian predicted Republicans will begin to squabble among themselves and keep their distance from the governor. “They don’t want to be painted with her brush,” he said.

Haley’s numbers will allow Democrats to make headway in turning around the GOP’s dominance in South Carolina, Harpootlian said.

“What’s done well for Republicans in South Carolina is the brand,” he said. “They’ve been Coca-Cola. We’ve been Dr Pepper. But the shine is off the brand. She makes this easy for us.”