This seems it might be a lot more useful in about a year's time. Currently, there are a lot of governors who haven't had much time to do much.
This isn't useful at all. There's absolutely no correlation between governor approval and presidential approval/future vote, and its absolutely fraudulent to suggest anything of the kind.
If President Obama has strong approvals in New Jersey, then any influence of whatever popularity Chris Christie has upon the election is effectively neutralized. Likewise, should the Governor of some state that can't elect any Democrat have a Governor mired in a scandal reminiscent of Mark Sanford taking a hike on the Appalachian Trail and ending up in Argentina, then President Obama still loses the state.
So, we have two rival claims. Anyone want to test them? Or know whether they've been tested?
I have simply placed a hypothesis here. It can be tested in 2012.
Or, it can be tested now, by comparing gubernatorial approval ratings in 2008 to Obama v. McCain in 2008, gubernatorial approval ratings in 2004 to Bush v. Kerry in 2004, and so on and so forth.
