Poll finds Pa. voters souring on Kane
After a year of scandals and controversies, beginning with the decision to decline to prosecute eight Philadelphia Democrats caught on tape accepting bribes, Attorney General Kathleen Kane is losing favor with state voters, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Monday.
A new poll shows Pennsylvania voters souring on Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who faces potential criminal charges for disclosing secret grand jury information to embarrass a political rival.
A majority wants her to resign if charged.
Just 21 percent of respondents in the Public Policy Polling survey released Monday had a favorable opinion of Kane, with 38 percent holding a negative view of the first Democrat elected attorney general.
Her favorability score has tumbled since January, when PPP found opinion more evenly divided – 31 percent positive to 33 negative.
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman is weighing whether to charge Kane based on a grand jury's report that the attorney general illegally disclosed information from an earlier investigation of the finances of the former president of the Philadelphia NAACP chapter. The prosecutor who ran the Kane grand jury also has accused her of firing a deputy who testified against her in the leak probe.
Kane maintains that she did not authorize the release of protected information, and said the deputy attorney general's firing was not in retaliation for his testimony but part of a staff reorganization.
Sixty-five percent of respondents in the PPP poll say that Kane should resign if she is formally charged in the case, though only 35 percent say she should resign now, without such an indictment.
However, 56 percent say Kane should not run for reelection next year.
Results are based on an automated telephone survey of 799 registered voters conducted from May 21-24 and are subject to a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.