August 08, 2017 12:58 PM UTC

Gardner Approval At Career-Ending Lows

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• by: Colorado Pols

A clear indicator of the growing peril faced by Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner following the failure of the GOP-dominated federal government to repeal the Affordable Care Act has been a swift decline in Gardner’s in-state approval rating as measured in consecutive polls. Back in March, Gardner recorded a lackluster 39% approval in a poll done by Keating Research. By early July, Public Policy Polling found Gardner at a dismal 27% approval. And here are the latest PPP numbers one month later:

The last two surveys from PPP have shown President Donald Trump’s approval in Colorado holding steady at 40%. But since July’s poll, Sen. Cory Gardner has slipped a further three points to only a 24% approval rating among Colorado voters. Like we said last month, the huge spread between Trump’s approval and Gardner’s–not to mention how far underwater Gardner is in these surveys–is evidence that Gardner has lost support from liberal and conservative Colorado voters alike. Evident in these numbers is the failure of Gardner’s attempts to appease both sides in the debate over health care, railing against Obamacare out of one side of his mouth while making empty promises to protect popular features of the law out of the other.

Even during tough political times, most politicians find a floor in their support; usually at or near the overall percentage of partisan and like-minded independent voters. If these numbers are accurate, Gardner has fallen right through that floor into the abyss of having no friends on either side of the aisle. That can only happen when one’s perceived dishonesty overtakes any difference of opinion about a given issue among the voters.

That’s where Gardner finds himself today. It doesn’t matter what he says, because no one trusts him.

And we don’t even know how you begin fixing that.