San Francisco  - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has plunged to a new low in the polls with only 27 per cent of residents in the financially-troubled state approving of his job performance, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday. The telephone poll of 1,005 voters found that 65 per cent of voters disapproved of Schwarzenegger.

Only one governor in the last 50 years has been less popular than the former action movie star. That was Gray Davis, a Democrat who polled just 23 per cent approval in
2003, when Schwarzenegger engineered a recall election to oust him on the back of a previous economic crisis, the poll pointed out.

Schwarzenegger vowed to fix the state's economic problems and was re-elected by more than 50 per cent of voters in 2007. He had an approval rating of over 60 per cent in December of that year. But with the state forced into a devastating round of cuts, his support has steadily eroded ever since.

The only comfort for him from the latest numbers came from the poll on the legislature, with which Schwarzenegger is often at odds. According to the survey only 13 per cent of voters approved of the legislature, with 78 per cent disapproving.  dpa