Gov. Susana Martinez’s approval ratings bumped up slightly in the latest results from Morning Consult.
The poll showed that Martinez’s approval rating among registered voters moved back toward even, with 44 percent approval and 45 percent disapproval and 10 percent undecided. Martinez is the 10th-least popular governor out of 49 polled.
In the Morning Consult’s April poll, 44 percent approved of Martinez’s job performance while 48 percent disapproved. The difference in results is within the poll’s margin of error.
While Martinez is near the bottom of the ratings, she is well ahead of those at the very bottom—Kansas’ Sam Brownback and New Jersey’s Chris Christie have approval ratings of just 25 percent against disapproval ratings of 66 percent and 69 percent. Both are Republicans.
Two other Republicans are the most popular with their voters. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, has a 71 percent approval rating and 17 percent disapproval rating while Larry Hogan of Maryland is at 68 percent and 16 percent.
Republicans fill out the top and the bottom of the list: The ten most popular governors among the 50 states are Republicans, as are seven of the 10 with the highest disapproval ratings. There are currently 33 Republican governors, 16 Democrats and one independent.
The poll did not include newly-appointed Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who took over for Terry Branstad when he became U.S. Ambassador to China in late May. Both are Republicans.
Last week, the same pollster released results on U.S. senators, including the two from New Mexico, both Democrats. The results showed 53 percent of registered voters approved of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall’s job performance against 27 percent who disapprove. For Martin Heinrich, the numbers were 48 percent to 30 percent.
The poll, conducted between April 1 and July 10 using an online system, polled registered 195,704 voters throughout the country. Out of those in New Mexico, there is a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
