What's the deal in Colorado?

Gallup's 50 state approval ratings for Barack Obama over the first six months of 2009 came out yesterday and one thing really caught my attention: his approval in Colorado ranked 43rd out of the 50 states, trailing deep red places like Kentucky, Alabama, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Mississippi.

Obama won Colorado by nine points last year, so it's a surprise his approval rating there is lagging so many places where he got trounced by John McCain.

This isn't the first evidence though that Obama has a problem in Colorado. When we polled the state back in April while he was still as popular as ever, his approval was only 49%, five points below what he earned at the polls in November. That was the first state we'd polled where we found Obama's approval rating below his vote share.

So there are a couple of pieces of evidence now that Obama may have a Colorado problem, although I certainly don't have any explanations. It does look like we'll be polling there this weekend unless some other state makes a comeback in the next 20 hours.