Barely more than a week after announcing his re-election campaign, a new Quinnipiac poll finds that 48% of Colorado voters don’t think Governor Hickenlooper deserves to be re-elected.

The statewide survey, released at noon today, shows Hickenlooper in serious political trouble, with only 45% believing he deserves a second term.

That’s an increase in his opposition from June’s Quinnipiac poll which found Hick with the same level of re-election support (45%), but only 44% who thought he didn’t deserve re-election. 

A trend like that has got to be making Hickenlooper’s political team reach for the Maalox right about now.

In a head to head matchup with the best known GOP gubernatorial candidate, Tom Tancredo, the governor is in a statistical tie 46/45.  Hick led the other two gubernatorial candidates tested — Secretary of State Scott Gessler and State Senator Greg Brophy — but neither Gessler nor Brophy were known by a majority of respondents.

On the two issues Hickenlooper has been hammered the most on — gun control and his temporary reprieve for cold blooded killer Nathan Dunlap — Colorado voters are very much opposed to Hickenlooper.

Voters disapprove 48/27 of the way Hick dealt with the death penalty and disapprove 52/35 of the way he handled gun control.

The one bright spot for Hickenlooper is voters seemed to like him personally, giving him high marks for caring about people like them and being honest.

Maybe District Attorney George Brauchler was spot on with his critique of Hickenlooper as the state’s bartender — nice guy, wrong for the job.

(Polling note: From August 15 – 21, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,184 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones.)