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SALT LAKE CITY — Nearly half of Utah voters approve of the job Gov. Gary Herbert is doing in his last term as governor after a decade in the state's top office, according to poll results released Monday.
Herbert, who will welcome many of the nation's governors to Salt Lake City for a three-day National Governors Association meeting that starts Wednesday, has the approval of 48% of voters polled by UtahPolicy.com and Y2 Analytics.
Just under a third, 32%, don't like what they're seeing from the Utah governor who assumed office in 2009, while 13% said they neither approved nor disapproved of his job performance and 6% didn't know how to judge him.
At the same time, half of the Utahns polled either don't know what they think of Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox's job performance or neither approve nor disapprove of the work he's doing as Herbert's No. 2.
Cox, who announced earlier this summer he's running for governor in 2020, got a favorable approval rating from 37% of those polled, while 14% said they disapprove of his job performance.
The governor's office had no comment on the poll, but Cox's campaign manager, Austin Cox, said the lieutenant governor "is pleased with the high approval from those who know him, but he wants to get to know every Utahn."
The campaign manager said the lieutenant governor is currently visiting every city and town in the state and is "confident his support will continue to grow as more Utahns get to visit with him in their community."
The poll was conducted June 27-July 17 among a random sample of 2,608 registered Utah voters participating in an online panel put together by the online news source and survey research firm and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Herbert, who served as Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s lieutenant governor before taking over as governor when Huntsman stepped down to become then-President Barack Obama's U.S. ambassador to China, has long enjoyed high approval ratings.
In 2014, The Washington Post lauded Herbert's 73% approval rating in an article headlined, "The most popular governor in the country? You probably haven’t heard of him." (Past polls did not offer a "neither approve nor disapprove" option.)
A year later in 2015, Herbert became chairman of the National Governors Association. The group met in Salt Lake City in 2011, the first time governors had gathered in Utah since 1947.
Wednesday, at least 27 of the nation's governors are expected to attend the association's summer meeting at the Grand America Hotel, led by outgoing chairman and Democratic presidential candidate, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
Schedule speakers include Cindy McCain, the widow of former Arizona Sen. John McCain; Helen Witty, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving; and Thomas Farrell II, chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Energy.
Governors are expected to participate in Pioneer Day activities on Wednesday including the Days of '47 Parade. Topics on their agenda include combating human trafficking, improving cybersecurity and transportation safety.
