Newsom Approval Rating Plummets in New Poll

by Randy Shaw, 2006-03-02

The talk of the town is the recent poll showing Mayor Gavin Newsom’s approval rating plunging to nearly 50%, thirty points less than in previous samples. It remains unclear who commissioned the poll, but those called were asked several questions about city issues in addition to their opinion of Newsom’s performance.

Some suspect that the poll’s funders have not formally released their results to avoid publicizing the Mayor’s declining popularity, but San Francisco is a small town in many ways and this type of information rarely stays confidential for long.

In polls taken through much of 2005 Mayor Newsom had approval ratings over 80%, though half of this record high support was soft. This drop in approval of 20-30% could reflect the Mayor’s seemingly inconsistent handling of the San Francisco Police Department over the past four months. Newsom angered the city’s conservatives with his harsh attacks on the SFPD over the Bayview Station video, but then got the San Francisco Chronicle and some progressives mad when he backtracked on systemic police reform and then appeared unconcerned about the SFPD’s tolerance for misconduct.

The Mayor also went through 2005 without vetoing any legislation, but vetoed two tenant protection measures around the time the poll was conducted. This could have reduced his approval ratings, as could the continued rise in homicides that Newsom has been unable to abate.

It’s also likely that the spike in the Mayor’s ratings attributable to his implementation of gay marriage has worn off.

The Mayor never expected to reach approval ratings as high as 80%, and frequently predicted that his numbers would decrease. His decline from these lofty heights was thus not unexpected, though it appears to have occurred more rapidly than projected.

The Mayor’s falling numbers do confirm that he has made some politically questionable decisions in recent months, and that Team Newsom may lack the political adroitness that it exhibited in the Mayor’s first two years.

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