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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Gov. Jon Huntsman got an 88 percent approval rating in a new poll, and most respondents said they strongly approved of his performance. The Legislature got a less enthusiastic approval from 58 percent of those surveyed.
The July 14-20 survey of 900 Utahns statewide was taken by Dan Jones & Associates for KSL-TV and the Deseret Morning News, which reported it in a copyright story Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Huntsman said that whatever the numbers are, "We're just going to keep doing what we think is right in moving our agenda forward. Tax reform clearly is a big part of that." So is getting funding for early childhood education and support for ethics reform in the executive branch.
Fifty-two percent of the survey respondents said they strongly approve of the job Huntsman is doing, 36 percent said they somewhat approved, 6 percent somewhat disapproved and 2 percent strongly disapproved. The rest didn't know.
For the Legislature, the figures were 8 percent strongly approved, 50 percent somewhat approved, 18 percent somewhat disapproved and 17 percent strongly disapproved.
One action that displeased residents was the Legislature's rejection of Huntsman's request for $2 million to restore emergency dental care for disabled and poor Utahns.
Jones found that 61 percent of registered voters believe the Legislature should have funded the dental care, while 31 percent agreed with the Legislature.
After the Legislature refused to consider the matter, billionaire philanthropist Jim Sorenson and Intermountain Healthcare each contributed $1 million to keep the dental program going through the end of the year.
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Information from: Deseret Morning News, http://www.deseretnews.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
