A new poll says more than half of Colorado voters are happy with how things are going under new Gov. Jared Polis but contains the latest sign of danger for U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner as he seeks re-election next year.

Nearly six months into the Democratic governor’s term, 55% of respondents said Colorado was headed in the right direction, versus 37% who said the state was off track, according to a poll released Wednesday. Polis himself was viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 35% — a net favorability rating of 15 percentage points — in the Colorado Poll, conducted by a Democratic consortium that includes Telluride-based polling firm Keating Research.

But Gardner, a Republican who faces a phalanx of potential Democratic rivals, was viewed favorably by 40% and unfavorably by 39% in the poll. That’s similar to how he has fared in the Colorado Poll since President Donald Trump took office.

Gardner’s razor-thin favorability margin points to the difficult position he’s in, stuck between unaffiliated voters who disdain Trump and a GOP base that wants Gardner to toe the Trump line. In the new poll, Trump’s favorability rating was slightly higher than Gardner’s, at 42%, though 56% said they viewed the president unfavorably.

“The main reason Gardner fares more poorly than Trump is that only (63%) of Republicans hold a favorable view of him, compared to Trump’s 90% favorability among those same Republicans,” says a memo by pollster Chris Keating, Onsight Public Affairs’ Curtis Hubbard and campaign strategist Jake Martin.

A silver lining for Gardner: 22 percent of respondents offered no view or were unfamiliar with him, offering more opportunity to make an impression.

The poll was conducted June 24 to 27 and surveyed 500 Colorado voters who participated in the 2016 or 2018 general elections. Questions were asked by live interviewers over the phone, and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

The sample — 32% Democrats, 31% Republicans and 37% unaffiliated or registered with another party — largely reflected Colorado voter registration statistics, though unaffiliated voters were slightly undersampled.

While the results offer positive indications for Polis, they underline the deep political rift between the populous metro Denver region and much of the rest of the state. In the Colorado Springs area, just 30% viewed Polis favorably.

And overall, participants with negative views of Polis were more likely to be hardened in their assessments, choosing “very unfavorable” over “somewhat unfavorable” by more than 3 to 1.

That intensity points to why conservative activists who consider Polis to be engaging in liberal overreach have signaled their intention to mount a recall effort. But the poll appears to back up political experts who suggest the potential recall, at least this early, would be out of step with the views of a majority of voters.

Document: Keating-Onsight-Martin Colorado Poll