O’Malley’s job approval lower than Bush’s

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland residents say Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, is doing a worse job than President Bush, according to a new poll released yesterday.

Marylanders gave Mr. Bush, a Republican, a 36 percent job-approval rating, just slightly more than the 33 percent they gave Mr. O’Malley, according to the Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll.

A separate poll in Virginia shows 51 percent of residents approved of the work Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, is doing, while 46 percent approved of Mr. Bush’s work.

The polls of 500 likely voters in each state have a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Mr. O’Malley’s approval rating slipped 1 percentage point from October, before he called lawmakers back to Annapolis to raise $1.4 billion in taxes. But respondents who said he was doing a “poor” job increased from 30 percent to 37 percent.

O’Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese declined to comment.

The polls show Maryland and Virginia voters take a conservative view on key social issues that lawmakers will address when their respective 2008 General Assembly sessions begin this week.

Two-thirds of Marylanders, 66 percent, support giving police officers the right to check the immigration status of drivers when they are pulled over for a traffic violation, but only 55 percent think illegal aliens should be deported if they’re discovered.

More than three-quarters of Marylanders, 76 percent, said illegals should be barred from obtaining driver’s licenses.

Maryland is one of eight states that provides licenses to illegals.

More than half of Marylanders — 62 percent — did not think the General Assembly’s special session in the fall was the appropriate way to close the state’s budget deficit, estimated at the time to be at least $1.5 billion.

Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch dismissed the negative response. “I think you can find a poll in every corner, and everybody’s going to have a different opinion,” said Mr. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat.

Marylanders largely support the death penalty — 51 percent to 35 percent who want to repeal it. And a greater majority, 71 percent, want the opportunity to vote on the issue.

Efforts in Maryland to repeal the death penalty have failed frequently and are unlikely to pass again this year, though Mr. O’Malley has imposed a de facto moratorium.

Virginians largely favor establishing English as the national language — 84 percent support the measure. And nearly three-quarters thinks it’s OK for employers to require workers to speak English.

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