overnor Paul Cellucci's standing among Massachusetts voters has plunged dramatically, with only a third of the electorate expressing a favorable opinion of him and nearly two-thirds saying he has mismanaged the Big Dig project, a Boston Globe poll has found.
According to the survey of 800 voters, Cellucci's favorability rating stands at 35 percent, a dangerously low figure for a governor, while 33 percent view him unfavorably.
But perhaps even worse for the governor is that voters gave him low marks for his job performance. Some 28 percent rated his performance as excellent or above-average, while 35 percent said it was below-average or poor.
Gerry Chervinsky, president of KRC Communications Research, which conducted the polling for the Globe, said Cellucci's poor standing is unusual for a governor presiding over a strong state economy.
''The governor should be seriously concerned with impressions that the state's voters hold of him,'' Chervinsky said. ''In all of the polling I have done, I have almost never seen a governor anywhere in the country with such low favorable ratings in such a prosperous era.''
Rob Gray, Cellucci's chief political adviser, yesterday disputed the poll's findings. He said a survey taken by the committee that is promoting Cellucci's tax cut initiative found that the governor had a 62 percent favorable and a 31 percent unfavorable rating.
Gray said that the Globe's numbers ''are out of whack and don't reflect what's going on with voters. Cellucci is very popular.''
The controversy swirling around the $12.2 billion Central Artery/Tunnel project accounted, at least in part, for Cellucci's poor job performance rating. Only 10 percent of those surveyed approved of how the governor has managed the massive highway project, while 60 percent said he is doing a below-average or poor job.
The poll was conducted Feb. 21 through Feb. 24, during a time of intense media coverage of a recently announced $1.4 billion Central Artery overrun and questions about why state transportation officials did not disclose the increase earlier.
The poll of likely presidential primary voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey's sample is weighted to reflect statewide voter registration.
Although Cellucci's standing has been eroding slowly since last spring, his tumble in popularity appears to coincide with the Central Artery controversy.
For nearly a month, Cellucci and the project's chief, James J. Kerasiotes, have been under fire for the cost overrun. Just over a month ago, 51 percent of the voters surveyed in a University of Massachusetts poll gave Cellucci a positive job approval rating. Last April, he received a 69 percent approval rating in a University of Massachusetts survey.
Chervinsky said that evidence of the Big Dig's damage to Cellucci's standing with the public can be seen in the large undecided bloc. That bloc represents voters who expressed favorable views of the governor in the past, but now have doubts because of the controversy, Chervinsky said. ''When people are confronted with new information, it causes them to step back and reassess,'' said Chervinsky. ''That's what we are seeing here.''
But Cellucci may also be suffering collateral damage from controversies that hit Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift last month and badly dented her image. Swift received a 20 percent favorability rating from the voters surveyed in the Globe poll, while 36 percent rated her unfavorably. Twenty-six percent had no opinion of her.
Swift's popularity fell after it was revealed in January that she used her staff for personal chores, including baby-sitting, and she traveled aboard a State Police helicopter from Boston to her North Adams home just before Thanksgiving.
Other recent governors have fared worse than Cellucci, but they have served during periods of fiscal instability. Seventy percent of voters rated former governor Edward J. King's job performance negatively after his first year in office, and his unfavorability rating was often above 60 percent. Michael Dukakis received a 26 percent favorability rating, while 68 percent rated him unfavorably or extremely unfavorably after the then-governor failed in his presidential bid, and the state was in the midst of the late 1980s fiscal crisis.
In October 1998, just before Cellucci was elected, a Globe poll showed that his favorability rating stood at 60 percent, and his unfavorability at 22 percent.
The new poll shows that the public's faith in the Cellucci administration's management of the Central Artery project has been shaken badly. Some 68 percent say they have no confidence that the final costs will be reasonably close to the recently revised $12.2 billion price tag. Only 23 percent said it would be completed for that sum.
Perhaps more troubling, 48 percent said they felt Kerasiotes and his Big Dig team were intentionally misleading about the cost of the project, while 22 percent said they were truthful and honest. Another 30 percent had no opinion. The public expressed little support for Kerasiotes's stewardship of the giant project. Some 59 percent gave Kerasiotes a below-average or poor job rating, and 6 percent gave him an excellent or above-average score. Twenty percent rated his performance as average.
As Cellucci and legislators scramble to find ways of covering the Big Dig funding gap, the poll showed voters strongly favor, by 63 percent to 32 percent, tapping the state's $4 billion in cash reserves, and opposed most other measures.
While 41 percent said Cellucci should eliminate his $1.2 billion tax cut plan and use the money for the Central Artery, 52 percent opposed the idea.
Some 87 percent opposed an increase in gasoline taxes, while 11 percent backed it. Raising tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike, Tobin Bridge, and the harbor tunnels was supported by 39 percent, and opposed by 55 percent.
Adding new tolls to the Southeast Expressway and Interstate 93 also ran into opposition from 58 percent of those surveyed, while 33 percent approved of the idea.
In other findings, voters identified health care and health insurance as the issue that most concerned them. One-third of those surveyed called health care the most important issue, while another 15 percent rated education, and 13 percent listed taxes. None of the other public policy issues scored close to those three.
The poll also showed US Senator Edward M. Kennedy's standing with voters remained strong. Of those surveyed, 62 percent viewed Kennedy favorably and 22 percent unfavorably. Another 14 percent expessed no opinion.
Some 60 percent gave Kennedy an excellent or above-average job approval rating and 11 percent rated his performance as poor or below-average. Twenty-four percent expressed no confidence.
Kennedy also led his likely Republican opponent, Michael Sullivan, by a 60 percent to 23 percent rating, with 16 percent undecided. Sullivan, the Plymouth district attorney who has not officially announced his candidacy, is still widely unknown in Massachusetts. Fourteen percent of those surveyed rated Sullivan favorably, while 11 percent rated him unfavorably, and 75 percent expressed no opinion.
Just over a majority of those surveyed, 52 percent, said Kennedy, 68, who has served since 1962, deserves reelection, while 32 percent said someone else should be given a chance to hold the position. Eleven percent said their opinion depends on who runs against him. Those numbers are stronger than during Kennedy's last election in 1994, when only 47 percent said they believed he deserved reelection and 44 percent advocated giving someone else a chance.
The poll also showed unease about using public funds to help the Red Sox build a new Fenway Park. Some 57 percent said they would oppose taxpayers money being used, and 33 percent said they would support such an expenditure.
