September 21, 2016

Poll puts Martinez’s approval rating at 50 percent

A new survey says 50 percent of New Mexican registered voters approve of Gov. Susana Martinez’s job performance, according to a Morning Consult poll that looked at the approval ratings of all 50 governors. That’s compared to the 45 percent who disapprove. Her approval rating increased from the last time Morning Consult released results, in […]

Matthew Reichbach

A new survey says 50 percent of New Mexican registered voters approve of Gov. Susana Martinez’s job performance, according to a Morning Consult poll that looked at the approval ratings of all 50 governors. That’s compared to the 45 percent who disapprove.

Her approval rating increased from the last time Morning Consult released results, in May. At that time, 48 percent of New Mexican registered voters approved of Martinez’s job performance to 45 percent who disapproved.

Martinez has the 11th-highest percentage of those who disapprove, and the 32nd-highest amount of those who approve of her job performance.

Still, there’s a big distance between her rating and the top ten governors with the highest disapproval numbers. Every governor in that top ten has more constituents who disapprove of their job performance than approve.

Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican, and Dan Malloy of Connecticut, a Democrat, lead the pack when it comes to the highest disapproval ratings. Brownback’s is at 71 percent and Malloy’s is at 70 percent.

On the other end of the scale, 74 percent of South Dakotans approve of the job Republican Dennis Daugaard is doing, to just 15 percent of those who don’t. In Maryland, Republican Larry Hogan’s spread is 70 percent approve to 17 percent disapprove, just over Massachusetts Republican governor Charlie Baker’s 70 percent to 18 percent.

One thing is certain, New Mexicans definitely know who Martinez is and have an opinion of her job performance. Only 5 percent said they don’t know or have no opinion of Martinez, the fifth-lowest percentage of any governor.

Matt Mead of Wyoming, by contrast, is relatively unknown. Nearly a quarter of those in Wyoming, 24 percent, don’t know or have no opinion of the Wyoming Republican governor’s job performance.

The results come as part of the internet pollster’s regular questions in their polls of 71,900 registered voters throughout the country between May 2016 and early September 2016. The pollster asks registered voters if they approve of the job performance ratings of President Barack Obama, their U.S. Senators, member of Congress and mayor, and if they live in a city with more than 10,000 residents.

The margin of error varies depending on the size of the state. For New Mexico, the margin of error for Martinez’s approval numbers is +/- 5 percent.

Such 50-state polls can be useful, though FiveThirtyEight editor in chief Nate Silver noted they are not the same as individual polls of all 50 states. He broke down the difference here.