Washington, Sep 13 (IANS): Approval ratings of US state Governors slipped to 48 per cent on an average in August, a 3 per cent drop from last month, due to their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new poll has revealed.

The August 7-26 national survey of more than 21,000 individuals was the ninth conducted by NU political scientists as part of a consortium between the Northwestern University, Harvard, Northeastern and Rutgers, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

In previous survey results, governors' approval ratings had dropped 10 points on average between April and June.

California's Gavin Newsom, Virginia's Ralph Northram and Florida's Ron DeSantis saw particularly large drops in their approval ratings compared to other Governors, even though Covid-19 cases have decreased in the three states.

Governors received lower ratings from both Democrats and Republicans, but the drop was larger among their constituents in the opposing political party.

Notably, five Republican governors who have managed the pandemic more aggressively from Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio and Vermont received high marks from both their Democratic and Republican constituents.

Democrats, surprisingly, had a 1 per cent higher average approval rating of their Republican governors at 72 per cent compared to 71 per cent among Republicans.