Talk Elections

46-43-5-7 Gardner/Udall

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2014/10/21/democratic-poll-shows-udall-behind-senate-race/114273

They didn't push leaners? Both men lost ground (-1 CG, -2 MU) from last time.

Here comes the boom.

It seems Colorado is experiencing a miniature 1994

I think I'm finally going to have to give this one to Gardner.

Yeah, this one is over. Stick a fork in Udall.

Very bad for Udall:

Wouldn't go that far. I definitely see this one as being "too close to call" on election night. But the fact that he has trailed in basically every major poll for a while now is worrisome.

The Gardner campaign seems to have taken complete control of the campaign's narrative these past few weeks.

Sabato has this race clearly as tossup not leans GOP. I am not conceding this race becausr it is PPP. Udall is still in it and mau even be in a bettrr position than Begich who trails by fivr.

It didn't help that Udall said he was "brain-dead" and couldn't remember more than one book he read that had an impact on his life and then asked to re-tape the interview.

You'd think that would be Candidate School 101 nowadays. Seems like it's Gardner's race to lose at this point.

OC, Sabato also has Kentucky as Likely R, and you keep insisting Grimes is going to win.

I'm not saying we should treat Sabato's rankings at doctrine, nor am I saying Udall is finished, but let's try and be consistent.

Ahaha, that's really not good.

Udall clearly had a bump in the road, its not the end of road. He is in a better position to win because of Hick, than Begich, who trails by five. 

No, Hickenlooper should eek out a win and we'll almost certainly keep the state house and probably the state senate.  Despite the poll, I think we'll also narrowly pickup the Secretary of State's office, especially with Campbell on the ballot (even if she's overpolling, she's only taking votes away from Williams).  Coloradans can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard Neguse has run a very strong campaign and is considered a top-tier recruit whereas Williams is considered a pretty "meh" candidate at best.  The Treasurer's race seems more competitive than I expected since I've never been very impressed by Markey, but it looks like she could win (although my gut still says she'll do worse than Neguse).  The AG race is disappointing because Quick seemed like a really strong candidate on paper, but I've heard Coffman proved stronger than expected and this always struck me as a race tied to the national mood...oh well :( Udall has simply run an awful campaign while Gardner ran a better campaign than any other Republican Senate candidate (including incumbents).

TL; DR: Yes, we're facing some backlash here from the gun stuff, but this is hardly a 1994-type situation (if you want to see what that would look like, watch the results in Ohio).  Even Udall would've probably won had he run an average-quality campaign.  This will be pretty rough, but it isn't 1994 level-bad.  If it was, Hickenlooper would probably be doing worse than Udall (given that he's probably about as hated by Colorado Republicans as Barack Obama).

Here's the full poll. Gardner leads 47/44 with leaners. (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2014/PPP_Release_CO_1021513.pdf)

I love this news! I suppose Gardner definitely has at least some edge.

Seems like an interestingly high number of undecideds, but nevertheless, this is good news.

I'm going to stick to my prediction that Udall wins. On election day, I have to imagine that Udall carries women by more than 4%. Turnout counts, and Democrats do more ground work than Republicans. I can't tell you how many Republicans think groundwork is silly.

Democrats will likely lose the state senate and the state house is in play, although Democrats should hold it, albeit by a small margin. Hick tied, and that is assuming a decent Democratic turnout. If the GOP backlash or turnout is just a little stronger than the polling, then the GOP will sweep all statewide races.

The GOP leads by eight in the generic legislative ballot. That is....amazing. They actually might sweep the legislature with a boost like that.

RIP Udall. Almost as sad as when Feingold lost. :(

Jesus Christ.

New Poll: Colorado Senator by Public Policy Polling on 2014-10-19 (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2014/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=8220141019108)

Summary: D: 43%, R: 46%, I: 5%, U: 7%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2014/PPP_Release_CO_1021513.pdf)

Well, sh*t.

The pundit in me just can't see a Udall going down unceremoniously in Colorado. The pollster in me acknowledges it's not looking good. Considering Hickenlooper and the almighty Colorado Brewer interests are also trying to pack this thing, it would not surprise me to see a Quinn/Reid 2010 thing happen here.

Or hell, the final RCP average for Bennet-Buck was Buck+3.

Can people stop citing RCP averages while at the same time yelling junk poll whenever Rassy polls? PICK ONE PEOPLE.

Rasmussen aside, final PPP was Buck +1, final Marist was Buck +4, final CNN was Buck +1

Which is a +2 Buck margin, which is well-within the general margin of error for most polls.

Where is KCDem and Dr.Scholl?

They've gone away quietly, thankfully....

The margin of error for one poll. Multiple polls being systematically a couple of points wrong, all in the direction of one candidate is something different.

I'm not saying the same thing is going to happen, because pollsters clean up their methods and improve over time, but it's foolish to say it DIDN'T happen in 2010.

I'm still here, sorry if that upsets you.

At least you can somewhat have a civil conversation and don't resort nearly as quickly to personal insults

It's Colorado, so Udall still has a decent chance, but it's undeniable at this point that Gardner is the favorite.

I thought the Republicans over the past decade made it clear that nominating idiots (especially idiots from political dynasties), is generally a recipe for disaster. Democrats did not learn that lesson.

Buck was ahead +3.0; Gardner is ahead +3.8 and gaining right now. (I'd also note that Udall was ahead +12.5 in 2008 and only won +10.3, even as Obama significantly underperformed in polling; we can't rule out, based on Udall's history, that it is Gardner polls are underestimating).

Also, +8 on the generic ballot looks fantastic for our chances at the state legislature. If Beauprez pulls it out, we could have a trifecta and bring the Midwestern reform efforts of Snyder and Walker to Colorado.

Isn't Democratic overreach basically the entire reason Democrats are hurting in CO right now? If they try to Walker-ize Colorado, you can probably expect them to be in deep trouble in 2016/2018.

Way to go Colorado.  Gardner will be a great senator.  And of course,  KCDem is nowhere to be found. (I'm sure he thinks that this is a junk poll though)

If Republicans get the trifecta, the overreach will be huge. Beauprez thinks Obama wasn't even born here, so you can imagine what sort of craziness him and Republican legislature would come up with. That would destroy Republicans in 2016.

Oh, lots would be accomplished. And I'm sure Beauprez would be in as much trouble as Snyder and Walker are in. (Depending on to what extent the Democratic bench is destroyed, y'all might even be in store for a Branstad/Kasich situation. But I'm fantasizing right now -- Beauprez, unlike Gardner, has yet to even pull away from his Democratic opponent.)

If they try to enact fiscally conservative reforms, there may not be a backlash. If they go social conservative, which they likely will, there will be a backlash. Beauprez seems like a crazy. I really hope he doesn't win.

Fire up the truck!

Love that pathetic approval rating for the soon-to-be-former Senator.  Meanwhile, Gardener has a +3 favorability rating. Amazing!

Wishful thinking. The Colorado Democrats (especially in the state House) are the beneficiaries of a vicious gerrymander. They cannot lose that chamber.

If anything, Hickenlooper is ahead. Even if Gardner wins, if Hick stays, probably the House does and the CO Dems will still be the most successful state party in a purple except for maybe a little better than Virginia's and perhaps the same as New Hampshire's.

In terms of what would happen if Beauprez wins, if he does things like cut the income tax, repeal the gun laws and make fracking easier and makes it easier to recreate on state lands, he probably gets praised as a moderate hero.

If he does stuff like try to force a repeal of the repeal of prohibition or lets there be drilling in popular hunting and camping areas or does to abortion/birth control what Hick did with guns, there could be trouble...especially if they are disciplined until 2016, the national party wins big then and decide on a right-wing push like in North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio.

But if the GOP did win, they will be under a lot of pressure to pursue a very unreasonable agenda.

Okay, let us suppose that we pooled the 2010 PPP, Marist, and CNN polls together. While we are at it, we should probably include the SUSA poll that showed that race tied (or are we excluding that on the basis that it does not fit the narrative of Colorado possessing some mysterious polling ether?). Those combined four polls would have a sample size of 3124, which corresponds to a margin of error of 2% (I would say 1.75% but muh decimuls!). So, even when taking into account that the polling average reduces the overall margin of error, the polling average predicting a Buck +1 victory (PPP gets weighted more since their sample size was bigger) when a Bennet +1 victory actually occurred is not some spooky phenomenon that can only be explained by systematic polling error.

Furthermore, an important thing to remember here is that we are not dealing with rocket science; political science is a social science and thus, as Mandenbrot has shown, may not be as applicable to the normal rules of a Gaussian distribution. If we were dealing with atoms placed on a knife's edge, then it would be fair to presuppose that they will split roughly evenly, but such a phenomenon does not necessarily apply to undecided voters. Indeed, when I examined polling averages vs final outcomes for competitive Senate elections between 2006 and 2012, I found that the histogram looked much closer to what a normal distribution would look like if one multiplied the expected standard deviation by three (in other words, the tails were fat). Colorado was not even particularly unusual (Bennet would have had 3:1 odds using this method, rather than the ~40:1 one would expect from the expected standard deviation). Indeed, the only unusual results were West Virginia 2010 (to be expected when PPP has only Rasmussen checking their work) and Nevada 2010 (a more plausible case for systematic polling bias if I have even seen one)

This is looking pretty bad. If anything, the approval rating is the killer here. In mid-terms, turnout is everything, weak approvals suggests that you might have significant problems getting your voters out, let alone swing voters.

I think this one will go down to the wire regardless. I still hold that if the Dem is down by 3 or less on election day, they'll probably win. We'll see how the remaining polling goes.

KEN BUCK PERIOD.

Udall will still win because Bennett did, obviously. Likely D.

Gardner will win because Reagan took the state by 24 points 1980 and 28 points 1984. Safe R. /sarcasm

How does the SEC disclaimer go on publicly released 10-Ks? Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results?

I have a hard time pollsters haven't learned from their previous mistakes. If it quacks like Gardner +3 generally across the board, it's Gardner's race to lose right now. Tossup/Slight Lean R.

Most pollsters continue to have troublesome methodologies, it's a far more inexact 'science' than people realise. Most do OK and generally get it right in the end. But most of us have been around for a enough elections and CO is notorious for underpolling the Democrat, sometimes by a lot. So, at least I'm sticking by my personal view that if Udall is 3% behind or less, based on polling, he'll probably just scrape in. If that margin remains 3%+, then he'll probably lose.

Not quite. The House is in play, but it leans towards the Democrats. It would take a pretty great night to take it. This poll puts the generic legislative ballot, though, at R +8, which would be amazing. So we will see what happens.

They should Walkerize Colorado, didn't hurt them in Wisconsin.
Or maybe both states are shifting in different directions.

PPP is very good in Colorado so yeah, not a good poll for Udall. Hickenlooper is in much better shape

It kind of did, considering he's currently in the fight of his life despite it being a decent year for Republicans.

I'm glad you've come around my good man, it was not long ago you were posting stuff like this:

2010 poll results does not equal 2014

In a race that was supposed to be Likely R (*glares at Sabato*)