Gore Enjoys Slight Boost in Favorability Ratings

When Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006, Gallup polling showed that less than a majority of Americans had a favorable view of Al Gore. Yet just following his Nobel Prize win at the end of 2007, Gallup polling showed that this favorability rating had jumped to 58%. Call it the “Nobel bounce.”

A recently released Pew survey shows that Gore’s approval rating continues to hover just over the majority mark at 53%. Notably, in Pew tracking, as shown above, Gore has gained 11% in the “very favorable” category among Dems and 19% in the “very favorable” category among the college educated. However, despite an overall 5% gain among Republicans, his favorability rating still registers at less than a third of Republicans (29%), suggesting again that as the WE campaign recognizes, spokespeople other than Gore are needed if his climate change message is going to break through beyond the left-leaning Democratic base.

To put the Gore ratings in context, consider that the Pew survey finds that Condi Rice enjoys a 66% favorability, Defense Secretary Robert Gates registers a 62%, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates scores a 69%.