New Morning Consult Polls: Sen. Mark Warner +18 Net Approval, Sen. Tim Kaine +9, Gov. Ralph Northam +5

Morning Consult is out with new 2Q19 polling for U.S. Senators and Governors. Here are the results for Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, as well as Governor Ralph Northam.

• First, Warner’s at 48% approval-30% disapproval (+18 points), which ranks him at #30 in the country out of 100 Senators. Not bad at all, although certainly not at Angus King (62%-28%) or Bernie Sanders (62%-32%) levels.  As for the trend over time, Warner’s down from 59%-27% (+32 points) in the first quarter of 2017 and 50%-30% (+20 points) in the second quarter of 2018.

• Sen. Tim Kaine, fresh off his crushing victory over neo-Confederate Corey Stewart last November, is a notch behind Warner in popularity, at 44%-35% (+9 points). That ranks Kaine #64 out of 100 Senators. Meh. Over time, Kaine’s down a few points from 50%-36% (+14 points) in the first quarter of 2017.

• Gov. Northam is at 42%-37% (+5 points) net approval. That includes +47 points among Democrats, +1 point among Independents, and -37 points among Republicans. Northam ranks #46 out of 50 governors…ahead of only Connecticut’s Ned Lamont (D), Kentucky’s Matt Bevin (R), Rhode Island’s Gina Raimondo (D) and Oregon’s Kate Brown (D). Not surprisingly, Northam’s net approval rating took a big hit in the first quarter of this year, when basically every Virginia Democrat – and lots of national Democrats – called on Northam to resign due to the “blackface” yearbook scandal. Previously, Northam had clocked in at 47%-25% (+22 points) in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 40%-36% (+4 points) in the first quarter of 2019. Not great, but at least he’s in (slightly) positive territory and apparently not declining any further.