Monday, March 15, 2010

The Colorado Primaries

We wrap up our Colorado poll today with a look at the primaries:

-In the Democratic Senate contest Michael Bennet leads Andrew Romanoff 40-34. Support in this race may end up having to do more with personalities than ideology, as there's no real divide in support along liberal/moderate lines for now. Bennet's up 42-33 with liberals and 40-36 with moderates. Both candidates are pretty well liked by the party electorate. Bennet's approval is a 57/21 spread with primary voters and Romanoff's favorability comes down at 45/15. The one place where there is a clear division is along racial lines. Bennet's up 42-34 with whites while Romanoff has the 42-31 advantage with Hispanics.

For now this is a real race, but it remains to be seen whether Romanoff can compete with Bennet financially and his ability to do so will have a lot to do with whether he can win over the quarter of voters who are undecided.

-In the Republican Senate race Jane Norton leads with 34% to 17% for Ken Buck, 7% for Tom Wiens, and 10% combined for the rest of the field. There are more Republican primary voters who dislike Norton than there are Democrats who dislike either Bennet or Romanoff. Her favorability stands at 41/26. She leads Buck 39-7 with moderates, but by a much narrower 34-21 with conservatives. Given the quarter of GOP primary voters who dislike Norton and the tepid support for her from some voters on the right is Colorado a state where a Tea Party sort of candidate could become a third major candidate this fall and prove to be a spoiler? That would be interesting.

It's too early to completely write off Buck or Wiens because neither is particularly well known right now. 62% of primary voters have no opinion about Buck and 67% are ambivalent toward Wiens. If they have the resources to become better known their support will improve but 17 points is still a lot to make up.

-The Republican Gubernatorial primary looks like a total yawner. Scott McInnis leads Dan Maes 58-8.

Full results here

3 comments:

RS said...

Tom:
You probably know that CO has a closed caucus, not a voting primary. How would that affect the outcome? I think Bennet's push for the public option (playing to the liberal base) and monetary advantage (haven't seen even online ads for Romanoff) will probably push this to Bennet.

Saw a TV ad the other day attacking "Jane Norton's liberal record." LMAO...

Anonymous said...

To Tom Jensen & Dean Debnam:

Now that you've polled the CO Primaries please, please poll the Arkansas Primaries in the very near Future.

You do us a big Favor.

P.S.

My guess is that if Bennet only leads Romanoff by 6 Lincoln & Halter are dead even.

Anonymous said...

Rasmussen has Jane Norton leading Michael Bennet by 9 (48-39)and Andrew Romanoff by 2 (44-42), with Romanoff closing. The same poll also shows voters with strongly held favorability/unfavorability feelings towards Bennet at 16/26, Romanoff at 17/19 and Norton at 21/22. It would also appear, by the same poll, that (Republicans) Tom Wiens and Ken Buck are quickly gaing ground on all of the above. All things considered, it would seem a bit premature to try to come up with anything that is definably trendable.

 
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