Another independent poll confirms that Gov. Bill Richardson’s approval rating is well below 50 percent.
Richardson’s approval rating was 43 percent in the poll, which was conducted by students in a government course at New Mexico State University taught by Jose Z. Garcia, an occasional columnist on this blog and a political pundit.
The survey, conducted March 5-7, had a wide margin of error of 7 percent because it surveyed only 206 New Mexicans. Still, it matches a SurveyUSA poll released in February that found Richardson’s support at 41 percent.
The reason? Well, we’ve all been reading (or in my case, writing) about the ongoing federal grand jury investigation into allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration. The economy isn’t so hot, either.
The NMSU poll was first reported on by the Las Cruces Sun-News.
The most interesting fact revealed in the poll was that Richardson’s approval rating is much lower in southern New Mexican than in the north. The 12 counties that make up the southern half of the state gave Richardson an approval rating of 34 percent, while those surveyed in Bernalillo County gave him an approval rating of 49 percent.