Here's What Botching Its Response to Florida Legislation Did to Disney's Favorability

Spencer Brown | May 17, 2022 9:00 AM

As embattled Disney CEO Bob Chapek struggles to deal with the fallout from Disney's back-to-back losses against Florida lawmakers, the company's favorability among Americans is going down faster than the Tower of Terror.

According to a new poll conducted by NBC News, just 33 percent of adults have a favorable impression of Disney — 15 percent hold a "very positive" view of Disney and 18 percent claim a "somewhat positive" impression — while 30 percent claim a "neutral" view of the company and 30 percent view Disney unfavorably.

Disney's current 33 percent favorability rating is a steep dive from where the company was just more than one year ago in a March 2021 poll that recorded "a very favorable image among Americans" at 77 percent approval while just 21 percent at the time had an unfavorable view.

The share of Americans with a favorable impression of Disney has collapsed from 77% last year to just 33% today. This is catastrophic reputational damage—and a warning to other companies about the cost of going woke.
— Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) May 16, 2022

So, in just more than one year, Disney's favorability sunk 44 percent while those with an unfavorable view rose nine percent. The company's current 33 percent favorability is lower than both Donald Trump (36 percent) and Joe Biden (37 percent) in the same May 2022 survey.

The bombing favorability for Disney comes after the company lost its fight to defeat Florida's parental rights legislation, a fight it started after struggling to take a position early on and one it launched only after caving to woke employees and false mainstream media characterizations of the legislation.

Following that loss, Disney — what many thought to be a strong force in Florida with its Disney World property — also lost its attempt to stop the state legislature from stripping its special district status that allowed the park to operate with a measure of autonomy unique to Disney.

Those two public policy losses saw Disney's Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Geoff Morrell walk off the job after just three months, and have apparently caused a significant number of Americans to change their views of the company claiming to operate the happiest and most magical places on earth.