The Quinnipiac Poll released Friday says 52 percent of Pennsylvania voters support Paterno's firing while 43 percent oppose it.
Paterno and school President Graham Spanier each lost their jobs after former assistant Jerry Sandusky was charged with assaulting young boys.
Prosecutors say alleged on-campus assaults were not immediately brought to the attention of authorities even though high-level people at Penn State apparently knew about them.
The poll says 74 percent of respondents support Spanier's dismissal.
The poll of 1,453 registered voters for the week ending Dec. 5 has a sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
