Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) job approval numbers seem to be dropping in the wake of a report that he does not actually live in his state.
A new Public Policy Polling survey released Friday found that Roberts’ job approval spread had dipped since a year earlier. In February 2013 Roberts’ job approval was 31 percent while 28 percent said they disapproved of him. Now, however, just 29 percent of voters said they approve of Roberts while 38 percent disapprove.
The finding came a few weeks after The New York Times reported that Roberts (pictured) did not actually have a home in his home state of Kansas, something that Roberts’ tea party primary challenger, Milton Wolf, has gleefully hammered him on.
Roberts’ office has strongly pushed back on the Times report and Politico noted that the senator’s 2013 financial disclosure forms shows that Roberts owns a home in Dodge City. Roberts’ office said that he rents a room from donors because he does not stay in the house he owns and rents out.
Still, Wolf has stuck with the carpetbagging strategy.
The PPP poll suggested that, while Wolf is definitely in a stronger position compared to some of his other counterparts in other Republican Senate primaries, he still is trailing behind Roberts. The poll found Roberts leading Wolf 49 percent to 23 percent. The poll also found that against a generic conservative opponent in the primary Roberts leads 43 percent to 39 percent.
The PPP poll was conducted from Feb. 18 to Feb. 20 among 693 Kansas voters. Three hundred and seventy-five of those surveyed were Republican primary voters. The margin of error for the over all survey was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The margin of error among Republican primary voters was plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.
