The bad news just keeps coming for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
First, he was publicly ridiculed nationwide for signing a “religious freedom” bill last month allowing businesses the legal right to discriminate against LGBT people.
Now, a new poll conducted by Howey Politics Indiana has found that Pence’s job approval rating among voters has plummeted, standing at 45% approval to 46% disapproval. His favorability rating is even worse, standing at 35% favorable to 38% unfavorable.
Those are really awful numbers.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
So why is this such bad news for the disgraced Republican governor?
Aside form the obvious (nobody likes being told they suck at their job), there are two main reasons: 1. Since the Howey Indiana Politics poll began in 2008, it has never seen such a dramatic decline in such a short period of time, and 2. Pence is up for reelection next year and he’s currently facing off against three potential Democratic gubernatorial challengers. So not only is this bad news for his own political future, but it’s bad for his party as a whole.
Word on the street had been that Pence was considering a 2016 presidential run. It looks like that dream has pretty much been shot to hell.
The moral of the story? Simple. Don’t be a bigot.
Related stories:
David Letterman Shreds Mike Pence Over His Home State’s Discrimination Of Gays And Lesbians
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Calls Antigay Religious Freedom Laws “Common Sense”
Josh447
The fact any PR firm actually touched this tu*d bomb to try and rebuild Indiana’s image is truly amazing. Particularly since Pence refuses to establish state wide LGBT non discriminating laws. He’s not only in the toilet, he’s stuck to the toilet toilet bowl.
Jerry Payney
hahahaha!
Raúl Hernández
Poor toilet
Kangol
Right-wing big0t tanks in the ratings, big surprise there.
BTW, is there any reason Queerty will not report on the amazing pro-gay, pro-same-sex marriage speech Democratic US Senator C0ry B00ker (D-NJ) gave the other day? Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also spoke beautifully on the Senate floor about equality.
Also, is Queerty going to report on how the Western Conservative Summit banned the Log Cabin Republicans from participating? More anti-gay discrimination from the right, and it should be reported on.
Giancarlo85
Right wing bigots are collapsing in the ratings nation-wide, and the republican party is now in panic mode. They are very worry about 2016, and they know they won’t win it.
polarisfashion
@Giancarlo85: If they keep giving us a clown car full of idiots, then Hillary wins in a landslide. We just need to remember to get out the vote and make sure liberals don’t stay home like they did for the midterm.
Jeff Lanzetta
They call him the human toilet…
William Adkins
Go quietly into that good…ah, just go away, governor.,,you bother me!!!
Giancarlo85
@polarisfashion: Well, general elections typically are much higher interest and democrats generally vote in far greater numbers in those. But this all needs to change. Democrats need to get out in vote in local, midterm, and general elections in greater numbers. Across the board.
While we have low turn-out in California… even then, it’s not enough for the rapidly crumbling republican party in the state. There needs to be significant outreach… and get people registered as democrats. I think in about 10 years (nationwide), democrats will have a 2-1 advantage in registration over republicans anyways.
ggreen
Does he ever NOT purse his lips?
1EqualityUSA
This Country is inventive enough to come up with a failsafe, easier, more secure way to vote. The plastic card in our pocket allows us to perform banking and cash back and, yet, voting is so backwards. Mechanisms differ from State to State. With technology, it seems plausible that voting would become streamlined and uniform, and capture more disenfranchised voters. Long lines for certain communities, but not for others is criminal. Unfortunately, the conservatives on the Supreme Court chose to take away voter protection measures. Odd timing too.
Dale Landefeld
bite that upper lip……and then STFU.
Professor Fate
This is what happens when you live in a Teabagger Bubble.
Ra Hill
It’s called Karma!
James Hart
I don’t think that his approval rating tanked because he promoted the religious liberty law, but because he backed away from it. Pence’s political support always came from the religious right in Indiana, which is about half of the residents in that State, and not among the few liberals and gays that live in Indiana. I believe that his religious right supporters stopped supporting him because they believed that he caved into the pressure put on him by big business to revamp the religious liberty law.
scotshot
@Jeff Lanzetta: Scatman.
Giancarlo85
@James Hart: You couldn’t be anymore wrong. How wrong can an antigay bigot on here be? You are delusional. A majority in Indiana oppose the anti gay law.
gaym50ish
The plummeting approval rating is not entirely because of his anti-gay stance — it’a because he angered BOTH sides in the the “religious freedom” debate. First he angered those who don’t like to see religion used as an excuse to discriminate. Then he angered the evangelicals who WANTED the right to discriminate by pushing for, and signing, a “clarification” that watered down the law it could NOT be used to defend discrimination.
His interview with George Stephanopolis was fun to watch. It was hilarious the lengths he went to in order NOT to answer a simple yes-or-no qustion: Does the law allow a business owner to discriminate against gays or not? Obviously the original version did, but he refused to admit that and simply talked in circles.
gaym50ish
When considering their stands on gay-equality issues, politicians should be taking their lessons from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and deciding how they want to go down in history.
Will they be counted among the champions of human rights, like those who marched with Dr. King? Or will they be remembered the way we remember Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ranted against racial integration and tried to block a door at the state-supported university? Do they prefer a legacy like that of Governor Orval Faubus, who defied a court order and called up the Arkansas National Guard to prevent school integration in Little Rock?
Whatever positive things those men accomplished as governors, they will always be most associated with bigotry. Today’s leaders who teach, preach or write bald-faced lies about the LGBT community will be remembered as bigots, not as conservative or religious heroes. And we will look back on this time in our history the way we now regard the Jim Crow laws of the Old South.
Sluggo2007
There must be something in the water in Indiana. Anyone I’ve ever met from there (gay or straight) was self-loathing and miserable.
aliengod
@James Hart: Unfortunately, you are 100% correct.
Chris L. Reynolds
Speaking of toilets?maybe his job could be cleaning “Memories Pizza’s toilets?
Daniel Cronan
So, Mike Pence. I just have one question for you, since people like you now have made it legal to discriminate against anyone & everyone who is not exactly like you. Would you welcome me, who has Spina Bifida, with open arms, or do I not fit your bigoted, hate-filled, narrow minded definition of an individual, either?!!!!!! You can call it what you want, but, as a lifelong Christian myself, I know that the truth is that the only reason that you ARE a Christian in the first place is because you have found, in Leviticus 18:22, the perfect excuse to hate certain groups that are not exactly like you. Groups that I guarantee that you already hated WITHOUT God/Jesus in your life!!!! And that the only reason that so-called “Christians” like you even know what Christianity is in the first place is because you were stuck for something to read one night in a fleabag motel on the way to a KKK Convention because you forgot to pack your latest issue of “Guns & Ammo”, & found a Bible in the nightstand drawer with Leviticus 18:22 & other anti-gay verses & now you have the perfect excuse to hate gays!!! I hate to mock people, but I am finding that next to impossible these days when I see these people using Bible verses about men lying with other men & sexual immorality being an abomination as an excuse for why they will not serve same-sex couples in broad daylight who want to do nothing more than shop, eat, go to the movies, etc. To put it bluntly, I truly feel that the reason that they use those verses as an excuse for why the LGBT community should be refused service at a movie theater, restaurant, store, coffee shop, etc. is because those verses fit their childish/elementary school-like/infantile mentalities/viewpoints that a homosexual’s life consists solely of nothing but dropping your pants & having sex, sex, sex 24/7. Anytime, anywhere, with anybody!!!
James Hart
@Giancarlo85: I don’t think so. I think that’s wishful thinking on your part. It was big business that forced him to back off of the bill, not a small bunch of gay activists.
James Hart
@aliengod: Thank you.
James Hart
@Giancarlo85: And by the way, I’m gay. But: NOT self-delusional like you.
Giancarlo85
@James Hart: You are extremely delusional. You are a right winger and you have said you’ll vote republican. That is delusional. You don’t care for this country. You only want to accomplish a nasty agenda because you think it’s better for your “checkbook”. When was the last time a republican presidency didn’t end in a recession?
You’re the one engaged in wishful thinking and you’re a self hating idiot too.
DarkZephyr
@James Hart: “I don’t think that his approval rating tanked because he promoted the religious liberty law, but because he backed away from it. Pence’s political support always came from the religious right in Indiana, which is about half of the residents in that State, and not among the few liberals and gays that live in Indiana. I believe that his religious right supporters stopped supporting him because they believed that he caved into the pressure put on him by big business to revamp the religious liberty law.”
If all of the above is true, James, NONE of it negates Queerty’s point here: “The moral of the story? Simple. Don’t be a bigot.”
He “caved” because he *had* to or he would have flushed his state down the toilette due to the backlash Indiana was getting AND the horrible image problem they now have. Your words, if true, would do absolutely NOTHING to help that image problem go away. So he should never have been a bigot in the first place, then he wouldn’t have had to “cave in” to any pressure, would he? The point remains. The moral of the story is “Don’t be a bigot”.
DarkZephyr
@James Hart: And by the way, the opinions of of Indiana’s religiously motivated bigots are not what are important when it comes to any presidential run. In that case the rest of the country’s approval does indeed matter, don’t you agree? And I won’t be helping to put that a**hole in charge of me as MY president, EVER.