Just a little over 100 days after Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson was sworn into office, a big number of Bloomington residents are not sure if they approve or disapprove of her job performance so far.
But more than four times as many Democrats approve of Thomson’s performance as disapprove of it. Among Republicans, twice as many disapprove of Thomson’s performance as approve of it. Thomson is a Democrat.
The question about Thomson’s performance was included in a text-to-web poll on races for Monroe County offices, which was conducted in the second week of April for The B Square by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a company based in North Carolina.
Among likely voters in the May 7 Democratic Party primary, 42 percent said they were not sure if they disapproved or approved of Thomson’s performance. On the Republican side, 45 percent indicated they are unsure about Thomson’s performance.
Among Democrats, 46 percent approved of Thomson’s performance, while 11 percent disapproved. Among Republicans, 19 percent approved of Thomson’s performance, while 36 disapproved.
Only poll respondents who indicated that they live in Bloomington received the question about Thomson’s performance. The poll question was worded like this: Do you approve or disapprove of Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson’s job performance?
Thomson’s approval rating among Democrats, while under 50 percent, is still significantly better than former Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s approval rating among Democrats last year.
In an early March 2023 poll, 27 percent approved of Hamilton’s performance, while 39 percent disapproved of it. At the time, Hamilton was near the start of his eighth year in office.
Thomson’s 46-percent approval rating is close to her fraction of the vote in the May 2023 three-way mayoral primary—which was 43 percent.
Thomson’s disapproval rating among Republicans in April this year (36 percent) is comparable to Hamilton’s disapproval rating among Democrats last year (39 percent).
The big numbers of poll respondents who are “unsure” about mayoral performance—across both parties this year and for Democrats this year and last—is consistent with the large percentages of voters who say they’re unsure about which candidate they support in local elections.
The big numbers of “unsure” responses could reflect a lack of certainty, or a lack of willingness to share opinions on local topics.
Local poll respondents did not indicate a lack of certainty about their attitudes toward U.S. President Joe Biden’s performance. Democrats who were uncertain about Biden’s performance were percentage-wise just in the mid-teens, for both 2023 and 2024. Biden’s approval rating among Democrats was the same for polls in both years—67 percent.
Among Republican poll respondents, those lacking certainty about Biden was just 4 percent, with 92 percent of Republicans disapproving of Biden’s performance.
The 2024 text-to-web poll was conducted from April 9 through April 11. Responding to the 2024 poll were 995 likely voters in the Democratic Party’s primary and 527 likely voters in the Republican Party’s primary. For the Democrats, the margin of error was +/- 3.1 percent. For the Republicans, it was +/- 4.3 percent.
The 2023 poll was conducted from March 1 to March 3, and received responses from 594 likely Democratic primary voters, with a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.