Perry's Texas ratings down after failed run, poll says

Jan. 19, 2012: Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pauses while announcing he is suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich. (AP)

AUSTIN, Texas – Gov. Rick Perry's approval rating in Texas has fallen to a 10-year low since his failed presidential bid, putting him on a par with President Barack Obama in his own home state.

More than half of the people who responded to a statewide poll don't want Perry to run for another term as governor and 45 percent said his failed campaign for the Republican nomination for president hurt Texas' image.

The poll conducted Jan. 21-24 was conducted for The Dallas Morning News, the Austin American Statesman, the San Antonio Express-News, the Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. The newspapers published the poll results Thursday.

Forty percent of Texans approve of the job he's doing as governor, a 10-point drop from a year ago and less than Obama's 43 percent statewide approval rating, according to the poll. The Fort Worth Star Telegram said the Democratic president's approval ratings have showed little change in the past two years.

Another 40 percent said they disapprove of the job Perry is doing.

The poll found 53 percent said they don't want Perry to run for a fourth full term in 2014. Since ended his campaign last week, Perry staff have said he could run for another term as governor.
According to the poll, Perry has lost ground among Republicans in a state dominated by the GOP. His approval rating among Republicans dipped from 73 percent to 60 percent, and among independents he fell from nearly half to 27 percent. Until earlier this month at the Iowa caucuses,

Perry had never lost an election.

Perry ran for president as a socially conservative candidate and he boasted about his job-creation efforts and the economy in his home state. But he stumbled badly with several flubs on the campaign trail, including his notorious "oops" moment in a nationally televised debate when he couldn't remember all three federal agencies he said he wants to cut.

The poll found 45 percent of Texans think his run hurt Texas' image nationally while only 17 percent said it improved.

The random telephone survey of 806 Texans, including 669 registered voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.