Tracking the Approval Ratings of All 50 U.S. Governors
Morning Consult is conducting thousands of surveys every day, asking registered U.S. voters in all 50 states if they approve or disapprove of their governor’s job performance. Every quarter, we’ll update this page with the latest tracking data.
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Key Takeaways
Scott's popularity reign completes third year: The second quarter of 2025 was another exceptional one for Republican Phil Scott of Vermont, who was the most popular governor for the 12th quarter running with a 72% approval rating.
Reynolds is still the most unpopular: With the highest disapproval rating of any U.S. governor (49%), Kim Reynolds of Iowa remains America’s most unpopular governor for the sixth quarter in a row. The Republican, who announced in April that she will not seek re-election next year, is the only governor with a net negative approval rating.
Mills trends in the wrong direction: Janet Mills of Maine is term-limited as governor and viewed as one of the Democratic Party’s best options to challenge moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins in next year’s midterm elections. But she’s also the most unpopular Democratic governor in the country, and one of the only to lose popularity since the last quarter of 2024.
Data Downloads
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America’s most popular and unpopular governors
- Iowa’s Reynolds is joined in the most unpopular list by three incumbents running for re-election in 2026: Kathy Hochul of New York, Dan McKee of Rhode Island and Greg Abbott of Texas.
- Andy Beshear of Kentucky is the most popular Democratic governor in the country, followed by Josh Green of Hawaii, Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Wes Moore of Maryland and Laura Kelly of Kansas, all of whom rank in the top 10.
- Republican Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota remains 2025’s most popular new governor, climbing from 3rd to 2nd in our latest top 10.
Trend over time: Governors' approval ratings
- Aside from Mills’ popularity slide, most Democratic incumbents have seen their popularity improve during the second Trump presidency, especially Green of Hawaii, Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tina Kotek of Oregon, Hochul of New York, and JB Pritzker of Illinois.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ approval continues to rise as we move further away from the 2024 Republican presidential primary. The latest figures show Floridians approve of his work in office by a 16-percentage-point margin, the largest since the first quarter of 2023.
- Gavin Newsom of California, ascendant in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary picture, maintained identical approval ratings at home over the first two quarters of 2025.
Methodology
All state-level data is based on a three-month roll-up of responses from Morning Consult’s daily U.S. tracking survey among registered voters. Margins of error among registered voters vary by state, from as low as +/-6 percentage points in less populous states such as Wyoming to +/-1 point in more populous states such as California.
Consult our State-Level Tracking Methodology Primer for additional details on the state-level data sources, including sampling and data collection procedures, weighting and representativeness, margins of error, and question wording.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com.
Eli Yokley is Morning Consult’s U.S. politics analyst. Eli joined Morning Consult in 2016 from Roll Call, where he reported on House and Senate campaigns after five years of covering state-level politics in the Show Me State while studying at the University of Missouri in Columbia, including contributions to The New York Times, Politico and The Daily Beast. Follow him on Twitter @eyokley. Interested in connecting with Eli to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
Cameron Easley is Morning Consult’s head of political and economic analysis. He has led Morning Consult's coverage of politics and elections since 2016, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, Axios, FiveThirtyEight and on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Cameron joined Morning Consult from Roll Call, where he was managing editor. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow him on Twitter @cameron_easley. Interested in connecting with Cameron to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
