Can we recall her instead? Senator Dianne Feinstein just registered the lowest approval rating in her 29 years in the Senate, as barely a third of Californians think she’s doing a good job.
Donald Trump left the presidency with just a 34% approval rating, the worst-ever approval rating for a president leaving office after one term. Guess who’s polling just as badly — your former San Francisco mayor and now seemingly forever-senator Dianne Feinstein, whose image has taken a battering in light of her inexplicable chumminess with the insurrectionist elements of the GOP, mismanagement and Lindsey Graham-hugging in Supreme Court nomination hearings, the shady nature of her billionaire husband’s investment dealings, and December’s highly unflattering “rumors of her cognitive decline” exposé of the 87-year-old the New Yorker.
As KQED reports, a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll finds Feinstein at just 35% approval, with 45% of state voters disapproving of her performance, and 20% undecided. That’s her lowest ever approval by a mile, as her previous lows were in 2014 and 2015 when she had just 44% approval. Her new California Senate colleague Alex Padilla is honeymooning at a much better 47% approval rating, with just 21% disapproval.
The polling institute’s co-director Cristina Mora says “The stark differences in support for Feinstein and Padilla reveal ongoing trends in the broader California electorate, as younger generations and communities of color, especially Black and Latino voters, become more vocal about the need for a multi-racial vision of Democratic leadership.”
EVERYONE: We have over 1.5 mill raw signatures but they are not all verified. My message is that 1.5m sounds great but is NOT ENOUGH. To ensure qualification we need 1.9 million. https://t.co/AagEb5mh6v https://t.co/nwN1JOxL5I
— Thomas Del Beccaro (@tomdelbeccaro) February 11, 2021
Feinstein will not face reelection again until 2024, so maybe these numbers don’t even matter. But there are some insights on other California politicians in the poll, most notably Gavin Newsom, who is slightly underwater (44% favorable opinion, 49% unfavorable) and facing a recall campaign wherein the “Epoch Times opinion writer and frequent Fox and Fox Business guest” above claims Gavin’s opponents have enough signatures to force an election. Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, has a 48-44 favorable-unfavorable ratio.
But DiFi is not the worst off among California politicians. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who badly wants Pelosi’s job, is sitting at just a 30% favorable rating.
Related: NorCal Woman Has Allegedly Been Collecting Unemployment Benefits In Dianne Feinstein's Name [SFist]
Image: WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) arrives at the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today's inauguration ceremony Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
