Poll: Pa. voters support Paterno firing — but just barely

A new poll shows that only a slim majority of Pennsylvania voters supported the decision to fire Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno, but an overwhelming majority agreed with the sacking of the school president.

The Quinnipiac University poll released this morning shows that the more educated the voter, the more likely he or she was likely to favor Paterno's ouster. Those without a college degree were evenly split.

Indeed, voters seemed to place most of the blame for the failure of the university to deal with sexual abuse allegations against former coach Jerry Sandusky on the fired school president.

A 52-43 percent majority of voters approved of Paterno's firing. But three-quarters supported the firing of Graham Spanier as university president.

"Pennsylvania voters have more love for the legendary football coach than for Graham Spanier, but they agree that Joe must go," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

A wide-majority said football has "too much influence" at Penn State, with about one-quarter saying it has "about the right amount of influence."

And a majority, 63 percent, say the scandal hasn't affected their view of Penn State. One-third said they now look less favorably upon the university.

The good news-bad news for Gov. Corbett: 47 percent give him a favorable job approval rating - about the same as last year. Approval is 65 - 20 percent among Republicans and 45 - 35 percent among independent voters, while Democrats disapprove 43 - 36 percent, the poll found.

The poll was conducted from Nov. 28 through Dec. 5 in phone interviews of 1,453 registered voters in Pennsylvania. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percent.