Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his vice presidential running mate Rep. Paul Ryan Saturday morning — a nominee about whom many voters have no strong opinion, recent polling shows.
According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll of potential vice presidential picks, 39 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Ryan, while 25 percent had a negative view of the Wisconsin Republican.
Thirty-five percent of those polled in mid-July, however, offered no opinion — favorable or unfavorable — of Ryan.
“The congressman is relatively unknown to the nation at large,” the polling outfit explained. “Only a third of voters have a strong opinion in either direction.”
A recent CNN/ORC International survey taken Aug. 7-8 offered a similar finding — that many Americans are currently agnostic on the pick, with 54 percent of those polled holding no opinion of Ryan.
According to the CNN/ORC survey, 27 percent said they held a favorable view of the newly-minted vice presidential candidate and 19 percent held an unfavorable opinion of Ryan. (RELATED: Democrats respond to Ryan, call his budget plan ‘radical’)
In June, a Quinnipiac poll that asked voters about their opinion of a Romney/Ryan ticket found that 61 percent of voters had no opinion. Twenty three percent believed Ryan would be a good pick, 17 percent thought it would be a bad choice.