About half of Virginians approve of Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a poll released Tuesday from the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College.

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       Fifty percent of Virginia adults said they approve of the job Youngkin (R) is doing overall, while 41 percent disapprove, the poll found. The findings put Youngkin’s approval significantly higher than a poll from the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at Christopher Newport University released last week, which found 41 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval among registered voters.

       The overall approval numbers from the Roanoke College poll, as well as views on pandemic response issues such as masking and vaccination, continue to show a deep partisan divide in Virginia. According to the poll, 84 percent of Republicans approve of Youngkin, compared with 30 percent of Democrats.

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       “It is not a surprise at all that many issues and opinions across the Commonwealth continue to be affected by partisanship and that mask wearing, vaccination, and other topics divide along party lines,” David G. Taylor, director of the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, said in a news release.

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       The Roanoke College poll was conducted from Feb. 7 to 16, about a month into Youngkin’s governorship, and was based on interviews with 605 adult Virginia residents, with a 4.8-point margin of sampling error. The Wason Center poll was conducted Jan. 26 to Feb. 15.

       The Roanoke College poll finds 51 percent of Virginians approving of Youngkin’s handling of the pandemic, with 44 percent disapproving.

       Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for Youngkin, said the approval findings were consistent with the governor’s winning margin in November, when he claimed 50.6 percent of the vote.

       “This poll shows that Governor Youngkin’s initiatives have received bipartisan support,” Porter said in a statement. “The governor will continue to hear directly from Virginians and is focused on delivering on his promises.”

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       Since he took office in January, Youngkin has put pandemic-related freedom, such as eliminating mask mandates in schools, at the top of his priorities. On his first day, Youngkin issued a slew of executive orders and directives regarding pandemic response, and he recently won quick passage of a law that lets parents opt their children out of mask mandates.

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       The poll also found a slight disagreement on his executive action regarding masks in schools. The findings showed that 52 percent of Virginians disagreed with Youngkin’s executive order that removed the mask requirement for Virginia schools, while 46 percent agreed with it.

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       The poll also found that about 56 percent of Virginians said they thought “local school districts should set mask requirements for themselves,” while 37 percent agreed with the response that “Gov. Youngkin and the state government should set mask requirements for local school districts.”

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       Whether local or state government should set mask mandates had the least-partisan divide, according the findings, with 45 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats preferring local school districts to make the decision.

       Youngkin also issued a Day 1 executive directive to remove the vaccine mandate for state employees. Fifty-one percent agreed with that directive, while 46 percent disagreed.

       Virginians’ opinions about Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R) are still developing, the poll found. For Earle-Sears, 30 percent said they had a favorable view of the lieutenant governor, while 33 percent had an unfavorable view and 35 percent of respondents said they did not know enough about her to have formed an opinion. Miyares had a 24 percent favorable rating and a 34 percent unfavorable rating, with 41 percent of respondents not knowing enough to form an opinion.

       When asked about the general direction in which the commonwealth is headed, the poll found Virginians torn, with 47 percent saying “things are generally going in the right direction” and 47 percent saying “things have gotten off on the wrong track.”