Journalist’s release boosts Richardson’s popularity

In August, Gov. Bill Richardson was ranked one of the 10 most popular governors in the nation by Survey USA. He tied for ninth with Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman.

Since then, Richardson went to Africa and rescued Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from New Mexico who had been imprisoned by the Sudanese government and charged with espionage.

It isn’t often that a governor gets a change to personally rescue one of his constituents, or that a state has a governor capable of pulling off such a feat, and the citizens of New Mexico know it.

The newest Survey USA poll, released today, ranks Richardson as the seventh most popular governor in the nation, with a 69-percent approval rating among his constituents. That’s a 4-percent jump over last month.

The survey was conducted Sept. 14-17, less than a week after Salopek’s release. It polled 600 adults in all 50 states and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

Even if Republican John Dendahl were running a more aggressive campaign in his bid to unseat Richardson, he would have a hard time gaining ground after an event like Salopek’s release.

Update, 9 p.m.

The poll comes out a day after the latest Rasmussen Report shows Richardson leading Dendahl 61 to 26 percent, giving Richardson his 60-percent goal. This one surveyed 500 likely voters in New Mexico on Sept. 7 – the day Richardson traveled to Sudan.