Merry Christmas Mayor Vince! Your approval rating has gone up three points! Put your feet up, have a glass of eggnog, line up some hand dances with the neighbors. Your neighbors might be the ones who bumped up your approval rating. Bad news is it rose from 31 percent in March to 34 percent in a poll released Thursday by the Clarus Research Group. That means more than half of the people polled think you are doing a lousy job. Not so hot, even by Barack Obama standards.
“The mayor let his first year come and go without defining his mayoralty,” says pollster Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus. “He allowed the coverage of cronyism and corruption define him in a very negative way. He must define himself in a positive way.”
There’s not much positive news to build on in Faucheux’s poll. Take attitudes broken down by race among the 500 voters polled across the city. Gray’s approval rating among black voters, who helped him oust incumbent Adrian Fenty in the 2010 election, has fallen off the cliff, from 82 percent to 45 percent. Measured against Fenty in this poll, black voters still prefer Gray, though by a much smaller number. Meanwhile, white voters would still vote for Fenty, 82 percent to 10 percent, according to the poll.
So much for Gray’s “One City.” The District’s voters are still split by race, but Gray has lessened the divide because more blacks side with whites against the mayor. I’m not so sure Gray had this in mind when he promised to bring the city together.
For those of us who sniff D.C.’s political winds, there’s no great surprise in the widespread sense of voter remorse. From insiders who backed Gray and feel he’s ignored them, to businessmen who believe he’s stalled development, to voters embarrassed by the federal investigation into his campaign, Washingtonians are disappointed, if not disgusted.
More bad news for those pining for Fenty II: I tracked down the former mayor not too long ago and asked him point blank if he would consider running again. His quick and unequivocal “no” didn’t have the tang of a pol playing hard to get. “That was then,” he said. “I have moved on.”
For those of us still here, it’s time to start considering who could be mayor in three years. Vince Gray will not be a factor. My guess is he hates the job and wishes he were still council chairman. He will be 72 and too tired to run. And his approval rating might still be in the pits.
Women did best in the Clarus poll: Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s approval rating was tops at 78 percent; Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton came in at 77 percent; schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson hit 51 percent.
“Voters like the gals, not the guys,” says Faucheux.
None of the three female leaders who scored well would run for mayor. Who could be ready and willing — and ethically unchallenged — in three years?
Muriel Bowser, perhaps? She authored the ethics reform package and seems poised for re-election in Ward 4.
Just putting that out there.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
