38 percent of Pa. voters rate Gov. Wolf job performance as top-notch

Though not as popular as former Govs. Ed Rendell or Tom Ridge in their first terms, Gov. Tom Wolf has a higher rating than his predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett, did four years ago.

That’s according to a poll published Thursday by Franklin & Marshall College, which found that just 38 percent of Pennsylvania voters think Wolf is doing a good or excellent job.

The numbers aren’t overly positive, but also not bad by any stretch — especially this early in the term, said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall.

“It’s not unusual to start out low, what really matters is the direction you head,” said Yost.

He pointed out that Wolf has a higher rating than any other official in the poll, including U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey and President Barack Obama. Yost also thinks that voters these days are more likely than ever to favor someone based simply on their own party.

“At the beginning I think this is mostly driven by partisanship,” said Yost. “And until we see the governor perform, this is just a baseline. And where he goes next will be up to the judgment of the voters and primarily independent voters.”

The poll collected data from 597 registered voters, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

On the bright side for Wolf, nearly 60 percent of voters supported his budget proposal. The two most important issues in the commonwealth moving forward are education funding and property tax reform.

More than 65 percent of voters support increasing the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and nearly 50 percent support privatizing the state’s wine and liquor sales.