I did a series of posts on my own blog in May about governor approval ratings, breaking them down by legislature partisanship, 2004 Presidential winner, region, and swing state status.

I completely missed the June results, but the ones for July are out now, and I thought I'd revisit these divisions to see how they are holding up.

The first thing to note is that the general trend has been negative for Democrats and positive for Republicans.  While we are still ahead overall, our average net difference is now down from about 3 points to about .75 points.

The trends though are basically the same.

(All comparisons are party to party unless otherwise stated.)

Republicans are still more popular in the midwest (11% to -3%) and northeast (13% to 0%), Democrats are still way more popular in the south (21% to 2%), the mountain west still loves everyone (28% to 27%) and the west coast still hates everyone (-10% to -25%, in the only comparison where Democrats gained in July).

Here's a graph of this whole trend:

Democrats still did phenominally better in Bush states (21%) than they are in Kerry states (-5%).  Republicans, on the other hand, are still about the same in both (8% and 9%).

Both parties are still much more popular outside of swing states (17% D, 12% R) than they are in them (-2% D, -4% R).

Still nothing really exciting to say about state legislatures.

I didn't make much of an attempt at analysis back then, but these surveys confirm one pretty significant finding - southern Democrats are ridiculously more popular than southern Republicans.  You can't really chalk it up to temperment of the population as you can with the west; there is something really significant here.

I know in Iowa a lot of Democrats are of the view that southerners have some sort of complex where they are only willing to vote for other southerners.  It seems to me that there is a lot more to it than simple regional prejudice.

It could just be that by the nature of the political terrain southern Democrats are forced to be more moderate while southern Republicans are able to live out their wild-eyed anti-American fantasies.  I'd venture that this plays a part, but it is still hard to explain how someone like Bob Riley, a relatively moderate Republican, has such high negatives as compared to Democrats with not-too-different ideologies.

I don't have all the answers, but I think some discussion on the issue would be healthy.  Any thoughts from you, dear readers?

(If you find this diary helpful and/or are interested in Iowa progressive politics, check out my blog at http://blog.drewmiller.net.)