1 day ago
8
Public confidence in the job Dr. Andrew Holness is doing as Prime Minister has steadily increased over the last two years.
That’s according to the latest Nationwide/Bluedot polls, powered by Total Tools.
Voters who rate the Prime Minister’s job performance as “good” now stands at 42 percent.
That’s up marginally from the 40 percent who gave the same rating in September last year.
Ricardo Brooks has the details.
Dr. Andrew Holness has been head of government for nearly nine years. In fact, he’s about three weeks shy of that mark.
During his time in office, Holness has faced a once-in-a-generation pandemic that battered the economy. A largely grim reality of crimes. And multiple weather related shocks.
But it would appear at least 42 percent of Jamaicans believe he’s handled it all well.
Those voters rate Dr. Holness’ performance in office as “good”.
It’s the highest job approval rating the Prime Minister has received in the Nationwide Bluedot polls since September 2023.
In fact, Dr. Holness’ positive job approval rating has nearly returned to the high of 43 percent recorded in September 2022.
The data suggest a steady upward trajectory in public approval of the Prime Minister’s performance.
In September 2023, only 32 percent of voters said Holness was doing a good job. That moved to 36 percent in February 2024.
It continued to improve in September that year when it moved to 40 percent. It now stands at 42 percent.
This suggests the Prime Minister’s positive job approval has increased by 10 percentage points over the last two years.
Those who rate the Prime Minister’s performance as “average” has remained consistent at 32 percent since last September.
Notably, that has fallen by 5 percentage points from the 37 percent who held the same view in February last year.
Perhaps the best news in this data for Dr. Holness is the fact that the pollsters found a decline in the number of voters who believed he has been doing a poor job.
That now stands at 26 percent. It’s the lowest poor rating Holness has received since 2022.
It’s also nearly 10 percentage points lower than the high of 37 percent that said he was doing a poor job in September 2023.
The pollsters describe it as a softening of negative perceptions of the Prime Minister.
This softening in negative perception comes as Dr. Holness is mulling the best date, to “Call it, Andrew! Call it!”.
The Nationwide/Bluedot polls were conducted among 1,500 registered voters between January 21 and February 1.
It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Dr. Holness is proving to be something of a ladies man with Jamaican voters.
Daina Davy has the gender, age and partisan breakdown assessment of the Prime Minister’s time in office.
44-percent of women say Andrew Holness is doing a good job as Prime Minister.
That’s more than double the 20-percent who who gave Opposition Leader, Mark Golding a good rating.
Thirty one percent of female voters say Dr. Holness has done an average job, while 25-percent say he’s been poor at it.
While men did not note Holness’ job performance at the level women did, they were still 13-percentage points more likely to give him a good rating than Opposition Leader, Mark Golding.
That good rating from men stands at 40-percent. 33-percent say Holness is doing an average job, while 27-percent of men say he’s doing a poor job.
When age is considered, Holness enjoys his highest job approval rating among voters 55-65 years old, where 49-percent believe he’s doing a good job.
Thirty one percent of that cohort say he’s doing a poor job.
Voters 18-24 and 45-54 also gave him a relatively high job approval rating of 44-percent.
The Prime Minister enjoys high job approval ratings among Labourites. Nearly 80-percent say he’s doing a good job.
Eighteen percent of self-styled JLP supporters say he’s doing an average job, while only 3-percent of them say Holness has been poor at this job.
Fifty seven percent of PNP supporters say Holness has been doing a poor job, 29-percent say he’s average, while 14-percent of comrades say Andrew Holness has been a good Prime Minister.
Among unaffiliated voters, Dr. Holness faces high levels of ambivalence about the job he’s doing as Prime Minister. 45-percent of unaffiliated voters say Holness has been average at his job, 26 percent say he’s been poor and 28 percent say he has been good at it.
That 28 percent is 14 percentage points higher than the 14 percent of unaffiliated voters who believe Golding is doing a good job as Opposition Leader.
English (US) ·