People originally liked her because they thought she was an average and modern American mom turned politician. Many conservatives and moderates liked her folksy and common sense style when she first appeared as McCain's running mate in 2008 at the Republican Convention. However almost immediately after the convention she began to show signs of her political inexperience. She knew almost nothing about foreign affairs, economic policy, and had been involved in a few scandals up in Alaska. She also went "rogue" from McCains campaign to insinuate that Obama was a secret Muslim, and that that was bad, along with attacks on his patriotism. This is believed to be part of McCain's loss in 2008 and all this caused her popularity to rank among moderates and establishment republicans.

As the years went on she slowly lost a little popularity with conservatives as she quit being governor half way through her term, had a few speaking blunders, and represented herself oddly. But she retained a bit of popularity among Tea Party supporters as an Obama critic and an example of "true America" in their eyes. But then, during her "Convince me to Run for President" campaign of 2012 she got Paul Revere's story horribly wrong when she said he rode through the country, shooting his gun and warning the British that they weren't going to take our guns. After getting that piece of history so horribly wrong, her popularity waned considerably among the few hold outs.