So what the hell is going on in Colorado?

[backtored]

The race has been basically tied since April.  Now the electorate is looking even more conservative as voters screens are set and the undecideds are coming home to Gardner, as usually happens after Labor Day when the incumbent is running in a poor political environment. Pretty much the same thing happening in Arkansas and Alaska.

The big picture is a massively unpopular Democratic Party in Colorado, which has a lot to do with Obama and the state legislature.  The latter is the same dynamic working against Tillis in North Carolina.  Democrats are really in trouble in Colorado up and down the ballot.  Simply being a Democrat and having the whole "vote with Obama 99% of the time" lassoed around him may be enough to take him down.

[backtored]

Well I dont think its the reason, he does actually have a rather good ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdLNIGv50WQ

Democrats have been having a cow about that ad because they seem to think that Gardner is attacking Udall's family.  The fact that they're trying to drum up controversy over this is actually fairly indicative of how uncomfortable they are with where this race is at.  Udall's campaign has spent gazillions of dollars trying to widen the gender gap and drag down Gardner's favorability.  The fact that the needle has barely moved has got to be really worrying them.  Now Gardner is starting to catch up in ad spending, which, as Nate Silver notes, could make him the favorite.

[backtored]

The irony is that Udall has been one of the few Democrats in Colorado to actually underperform.  And, yet, because Michael Bennet beat expectations four years ago suddenly that makes Udall’s deficit in the polls a good thing?  Perhaps the argument should be that Udall is actually poised to do worse than what the polls now show because of Colorado’s electoral history.