Actually, this is not exactly so. After having won the elections (strictly speaking, much of the people's support for Yevdokimov came solely from his popularity as a comedian and from his predecessor's unpopularity as the governor), Yevdokimov embarked on a political path that led to disaster.

Being an amateur in politics, he did not understand the intricacies of the Russian regional bureaucracy. He tried to play his own game, disregarding the "special interest groups." While there were attempts on his part to solve the accumulated problems (largely, economic) of the Altaiskiy krai, the local political elites united in their move to obstruct the work of the governor, publicly disgrace and eventually oust him from the office.

As I saw many times in the Russian news (we used to get the broadcast of channel NTV [HTB] unedited), he was usually accused of nepotism, of having personal connections with local mafia, and, of course, of mismanagement of the regional affairs, which ultimately led to the failure of the seasonal harvesting activities and to the krai's total unpreparedness for the winter season. Collective letters with criticisms were being routinely sent directly to Putin, who refused to fire the governor albeit Moscow's apparent discontent at the man's victory in the elections in the first place.

Finally, Yevdokimov got impeached. And later he died in a car crash. Certainly, there were rumors of the two events being related. No proof for that was ever found. (more here, here, and here)

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government -- Edward Abbey