Labor tension and more than a year of painful budget cutting has taken a toll on Gov. Linda Lingle's popularity, according to a new poll taken for the Star-Bulletin and KITV.

Asked whether they had a favorable, unfavorable or neutral opinion of Lingle, 38 percent of the registered voters responding had a favorable view, but 31 percent viewed Lingle unfavorably.

The poll was conducted among 800 registered voters statewide by telephone Jan. 8 to last Tuesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

A poll taken by Research 2000 for Daily Kos, a Democratic-oriented blog, listed Lingle with a 53 percent favorable rating in December 2008 and then 51 percent in June 2009.

Lingle was viewed favorably by 64 percent of state residents in 2004, according to a poll taken for the Honolulu Advertiser.

Lenny Klompus, Lingle's senior adviser for communications, looked at last week's survey another way, combining the favorable and neutral rating.

“;The fact that 69 percent of the people support Gov. Linda Lingle's actions shows the public recognizes the difficult decisions that she had to make during these tough economic times,”; Klompus said.

During her administration, Lingle had taken a $250 million deficit to a $730 million surplus, only to see revenues decline so much that the state now faces a $1.2 billion shortfall.

For Hawaii's previous governor, Ben Cayetano, problems with the economy and a prolonged public teacher strike took a toll on his popularity.

Cayetano opened his last year in office with a 24 percent favorable and 28 percent unfavorable rating, but by May 2001 it had changed to 23 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable, according to a Star-Bulletin poll.

“;Lingle's biggest problem,”; Cayetano said yesterday, “;is the economy and the way she has handled the budget crisis and the furloughs in particular.

“;As Truman said, 'the buck stops here.' It's part of the job.”;