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May 18, 2010 07:56 PM UTC

PPP Poll: Buck, Norton Tightening, Bennet Pulling Away

  • 76 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

A new poll out today from Public Policy Polling shows that Republicans Jane Norton and Ken Buck are headed for a close finish, while on the Democratic side, Sen. Michael Bennet is pulling away from Andrew Romanoff:

Norton leads Buck 31-26.  When PPP looked at the race in March she had a 34-17 lead. Buck actually has the 34-30 advantage with conservatives but Norton continues to lead overall thanks to a 32-12 edge with moderates.

Buck has seen his favorability improve from 21% to 32%, while Norton’s has dropped from 41% to 34%.  It’s clearly a two candidate race at this point with none of the other contenders getting more than 5%…

…On the Democratic side Michael Bennet has widened his lead over Andrew Romanoff to 46-31 after being ahead just 40-34 on the previous poll.  Bennet is doing well across the ideological spectrum, holding double digit leads with liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike.

“In Colorado the Democratic primary was supposed to be competitive and the GOP one a foregone conclusion,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.  “But it seems like the opposite of that is happening. Bennet has expanded his lead while Buck and Norton are headed for a close one.”

More on this poll in roguestaffer’s diary

Comments

76 thoughts on “PPP Poll: Buck, Norton Tightening, Bennet Pulling Away

  1. That Colorado Pols has normally dismissed polls and didn’t feel the need to talk about any of them when they showed Romanoff ahead.

    Oh wait.  That’s actually not surprising at all — those didn’t fit into the Pols narrative of Bennet being the nominee no matter what.

    1. .

      Sorry, it is no longer even a race, it’s now a cakewalk.

      This is in the same territory as DeGette or Lamborn.

      Take down the Big Line for Senate.

      No more diaries on the topic.

      You are wasting electrons.

      Focus on the races where there is at least some remote chance of a competitive contest.

      .

        1. Sestak is running against Spector who just recently became a Dem and is not trusted by many Dems in the state.

          Holder is running against Lincoln who has opposed the whole Dem agenda including health care reform.

          Romanoff is running because he ego was hurt that he was not chosen to the seat he felt he was entitled. He does have something though in common with Lincoln, since he did say he would have voted against the healthcare reform bill had he been in the senate.  

          1. Her approval and re-elect ratings have been in the toilet through the entire campaign season, even before Holder jumped in.  Voting for Holder is a self-defense move on the part of the state’s Dems.

          2. Specter – joined the party and stated he would not always vote for the dem policies – vocally opposing public option

            UNTIL his primary challenge, then suddenly he became a vocal public option supporter

            Lincoln- bankster voter who only became a vocal supporter of derivative reforms after it became clear that Halter was gaining traction

            Bennet – ditto on Public Option as Specter, yet strangely stuck with the Banksters on Kaufman Brown and has had a history of Bankster votes – specifically against Dodd’s reforms and Cramdown.

            And all three of these questionable dems are being supported by Obama despite protest from the local party.

            And even though Obama and the DC establishment is sticking with these conservadems, it is not helping – and Obama now does not want to be associated with the losing team.

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

            The White House is seeking to distance President Barack Obama from longtime Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter as the Democrat faces shaky election prospects in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

            And it is Halter, not Holder.

            1. more of a questionable  Democrat for stating he would have voted against the health care reform bill, I notice you chose not to comment on that. How convenient for your narrow narative of supporting him. Romanoff is running simply because he was not chosen.

              1. According to this Mike Littwin opinion piece:

                I asked Romanoff how he saw it.

                “I led the legislature,” Romanoff told me. “I know people can change votes. I know there’s risk. But this is our best chance to get it passed.”

                The bill was law, after all, by Thursday’s reconciliation vote, he said. The bill wasn’t at risk, only the fixes. Of course, there were other factors and other risks.

                Senate leaders had promised House leaders they would vote only for the fixes the House had added. Republicans, meanwhile, were tossing in every possible amendment, including the infamous Viagra Vote, stretching out the process for no purpose other than to stretch out the process and to test party solidarity.

                Romanoff is right that the bill needed a public option – that the insurance companies got a gift without it. Romanoff is right, too, that Obama – although he doesn’t say Obama – has been squishy on the public option. If you can’t pass it controlling the Senate, House and White House, when can you?

                Romanoff says, “It reminds me of that scene in ‘Blazing Saddles’ when the sheriff puts the gun to his own head and tells the crowd, ‘He’ll shoot. He’s just crazy enough to do it.’ ”

                But when I asked Romanoff whether he would have voted for the bill without the public option – if that’s the only real-world choice he had – he didn’t put the gun to his head. He said, “Yes.”

                In the end, that’s the only choice there was.

                (emphasis mine)

                It’s fair to question other aspects of this strategy around health care reform – and the assertion that he would’ve “led” on the public option to a greater degree than, say, Bernie Sanders or Bennet is debatable based on what Littwin reported above – but to claim that he would’ve voted against the health care reform bill no matter what is false. Plenty of folks stated that they were opposed to a bill without a public option; all of them, with the possible exception of Eric Massa, eventually voted for it – including Dennis Kucinich.

                  1. but he wasn’t the only one: see Kucinich, Dennis, for example. All I’m saying is that Romanoff would’ve done what every other Democrat in legislative office did.

            2. Anyone with 5 minutes to spare on google can easily find out that a timeline with Bennet only coming out for public option after Romanoff pressured him with his pro public option challenge is a myth.  Romanoff being an early, vocal advocate for public option is a myth.  Romanoff being particularly liberal/progressive is a myth. Romanoff and Bennet occupying widely different positions on the left right scale is a myth.

              If Bennet is supposed to be Specter and Romanoff is supposed to be Sestak in your analogy, you are living in a Rovian la la land. The polls reflect the reality based world where Bennet gets to be the candidate and Romanoff gets to support him or go home to sulk.

              1. wasn’t Bennet a Republican, like Specter, when he worked in the Clinton Justice Department, or for Mayor Hickenlooper, or when he ran DPS? There’s something screwy about your timeline, BlueCat.

    2. In fact, they’ve been reliably publishing poll data when it comes out.  (Remember the “Romanoff does better in general election” polls?)  But this is the first result we’ve seen in a while.

      1. There was poll after poll coming out that favored Romanoff.  Even if pols did promote a diary, they started it with discrediting the polling methodology (normally in the case of these types of automated responses) and saying how irrelevant they were.  

        Not the case with Bennet at all.  Does Pols not have an issue with automated ones anymore?

        1. Had a Bennet-Romanoff matchup. Every Rasmussen poll Romanoff’s campaign has emailed me about has been a General election matchup, not a head to head with Bennet.

          P.S.- the general doesn’t matter if you lose a primary.

              1. Either you dismiss the polling that shows Bennet is up or you acknowledge that Romanoff is the better candidate to take on the Republicans in the General.  You really can’t have this both ways if you want to incorporate the polling.

    3. What we’ve always said is that we don’t put much stock into polls that are done several months out from election day because people don’t pay attention until it gets closer, and because polls are largely irrelevant until TV ads have begun running. We still discussed them on the front page, but we always included that caveat.

      We’re less than three months from the primary now, and Norton, Buck and Bennet have all been up on TV. Voters are now starting to get a better idea of the candidates. In fact, this is exactly why we don’t take much from polls done in January — look how different things are now, on both sides of the aisle.  

      1. until mail ballots start arriving in the mailboxes of primary voters and early voting starts in counties that do that. This is a much clearer baseline poll than anything done in January or February.

      2. Pols-

        You have also been highly critical of so called “robopolling” in the past when discussing these results.  Your piece here doesn’t have that same criticism, but rather you omit any discussion of PPP methodology.

          1. Comments are disappearing right and left around here.  Pols had just put up a comment saying that they don’t criticize because it’s a robopoll.  Now that comment is gone.  Well anyway, in response, here is a quote from Pols:

            A couple of methodology notes: as an automated telephone poll, this was likely to have a rather high non-response or “hang up” rate–and it’s also impossible for pollsters to know for sure who was really responding.

            Source: http://www.coloradopols.com/sh

            1. while your obsession with discrediting Pols is incredibly boring and stupid, I’m glad you were able to provide a link backing up your assertion.

              I remember being very skeptical of robopolls in 2008, and even now I want to be skeptical of them, but they outguessed/predicted most of the regular polls in 2008, so I don’t really know what to say now.

              1. well i guess that’s as much of a compliment as I’ll get.  I know it seems hard to believe sometimes, but I actually do have things to back up my claims.  Fortunately this one was easy to find.

                  1. The point was related to the fact that Pols has criticized robopolls in the past, but now that there is one that benefits Bennet, they have no problem.

                    The search feature is very primitive, or else it would be easy to find a better example.

                    The anti-romanoff mentality is clear throughout the site.  Thanks though.

                  1. and come back to find Stryker working hard to get himself banned. Good times. Good times. Love the way he continues to give positive contributions to Romanoff’s campaign with his postings here…well, when he’s not busy trying to explain what a loan is.

                    1. Given the whole string of threats from Pols, I would ask that you refrain from using pronouns that specify a gender.  I am, in fact, not a “he” at all.  But nice try outing me.

                    2. At this point, you’re doing more harm than good.  Both to your own credibility and that of the candidate you support.

                    3. ..you don’t admit to being a “she.”  Is there some sort of gender-bending middle ground you’re successfully treading?  Mazel tov!

                    4. You so remind me of JO. How I miss him/ her/ it. How’s that, sweetheart?

      3. We know that every week a carrier pigeon from Moscow arrives and dictates that week’s slant as to how Pols is to cast Bennet as the winner and Romanoff as a loser.   The only thing I can’t understand is why, in this day and age, the conspiracy sticks to carrier pigeons instead of e-mails.  Probably a security issue?  

          1. remove a comment when it is refuted?

            it is weird that the editors are posting and deleting comments (not related to the other diary in discussion)

            that seem to contradict their own previous statements.

              1. saying they didn’t have a problem with robopolling as methodology.  I assume it was once they realized that previous diaries said otherwise.

            1. .

              AR is the great-great grand-nephew of Anastasia.  The Northern Slavs love him.  

              For those with short memories, the House of Windsor (very British-sounding) is actually a branch of the Romanoffs.  They changed their names to fool the Brits during WW I, and it seems to have worked.

              Also, sorry for posting that “Bennet is a total lock” post on this thread.  Obvious snark, it should have been in the shill/troll thread, but I didn’t realize that there was a thread dedicated to hucksterism, since there is so much on this one.

              .

  2. Hard to see how this isn’t cause for concern in Bennet camp.  Bennet has had the airwaves to himself for 8 weeks and has failed to break 50% or put Romanoff away. If Romanoff gets on TV he has the issue, special interest influence, to put Bennet away.  Stay tuned.

      1. I mean didn’t the Bennet campaign put out a statement that Romanoff’s victory on caucus night was a crippling blow to the campaign?  Expectation games and all that.

    1. There’s a pretty decent “undecided” vote in these numbers – 20% on the Dem side.

      Why would Bennet poll above that at this early stage of the game (if ever during a primary)?  It’s not like he’s much of an incumbent.

  3. The critical piece of missing information is how will the undecideds break.

    I went back and looked at the March 5-8 data.  Those numbers were for the Republicans, Norton – 34%; Buck 17%; Wiens 7% and undecided 32%.  A week later at the caucuses the numbers were Norton 37%, Buck 38% and Wiens 16%.  Norton picked up only 10% of the undecided to over 60% to Buck.

    On the Democratic side in March PPP had Bennet at 40% over Romanoff at 34% with 26% undecided.  Romanoff won the caucuses at about 50 to 42%.  The undecided broke for

    Romanoff at the caucuses in a big way.

    On the Republican side the Undecided are now down from 32% to 29%.  Norton has lost people who would vote for her from 34% to 31%.  Buck has gained from 17% to 26%.

    On the Democratic side Bennet increased his numbers from 40 to 46 and Romanoff has dropped from 34 to 31.  Given the previous break of the undecided, it looks like the Democratic race is about even.

    Given the earlier breakdown in how the undecided went on the Republican side, it looks to me like Buck by 10%.

    1. is that polling numbers don’t translate into caucus results because they are two different pools of voters. Likely primary voters (those polled) are not the same as likely caucus voters, therefore your comparisons in how undecideds are breaking doesn’t really work.

        1. This poll did not poll on Bennet’s favorables.  As I pointed out to you, it polled on Bennet’s job performance instead.  It’s 53 percent approve.  Over 50 percent is a good place for an incumbent to be.

          By the way, Romanoff’s favorables were only 48 percent in the recent PPP poll.  Not a good place.  Fortunately for him, his unfavorables were minuscule at 14 percent.  But the 38 percent “Not Sure” points out the need to get on TV soon, which he doesn’t have the money to do.

          I don’t place a great deal of weight on individual polls–I like to look at momentum instead. Although the momentum appears to be Bennet’s in this poll, I want to see one more to help me differentiate momentum from noise.

          But each poll has some data in it that’s worth thinking about, maybe a symptom of a larger issue, and in this one it’s Romanoff’s “Not Sure” number.

          Romanoff needs money.  That’s the only way to fix “Not Sure,” and time’s a-wastin’

      1. What is your inference as to how the undecided’s break.  

        I think they will likely break against Norton and Bennet and cite the caucuses.  It so happens that Norton and Bennet are also perceived as the establishment candidates.  I think assuming that they break evenly is going to way off.  Just my opinion.

        While my evidence is not direct, do you disagree with how it will break?

        1. and, to admit potential biases up front, I am a Bennet supporter.

          But that said I think this poll today indicates how the undecideds are breaking — i.e. for Buck and Bennet. I think Buck’s attacks against Norton as the “establishment candidate” have been more effective than Romanoff’s, which is why we are seeing the numbers we are today. Admittedly, this might be because Romanoff is not on TV yet, but if he does manage to scrap together some coinage for a decent ad buy the numbers for the Dem primary might reverse themselves. I don’t know, that’s pretty speculative and as a Bennet supporter I hope it doesn’t happen, but maybe.

          In the meantime numbers today indicate that undecideds are falling for Buck and Bennet regardless of the caucus/assembly results.

        2. the caucuses are the hard-core faithful, the primary voters are more moderate.  As to undecideds, they tend to break toward the candidate with the biggest ad budget.  That’s definitely Norton and Bennet, though third-party whack jobs may help Buck out on this score.  

          Napoleon said “God is on the side of the big battalions” and nobody has proven him wrong yet.

          1. There’s also a huge difference in attention paid to the campaigns by these two pools. It’s not just the biggest ad budget — Romanoff could cut through the clutter without spending what Bennet likely will — but also that Bennet is in the news frequently. This isn’t the same as Buck v Norton, where they’re on a fairly level playing field asking voters which better represents the GOP in the fall. Romanoff has to persuade voters to fire Bennet, and, like it or not, that’s a higher hurdle if Dems are mostly satisfied with the job Bennet is doing (and the poll shows they are, across ideological lines).

            1. That’s why running against an incumbent is almost always harder to do, because you have two different things you must accomplish:  1) Fire the current guy, and 2) Hire me instead. Norton and Buck only have to do the second one — right now, at least.

              1. Incumbents have a huge advantage with free media.  Romananoff can put out a press release saying Bennet should vote for a public option on health care.  Bennet can actually do just that.  The latter will be reported as news.  The press release will probably be ignored.

                add that free media advantage to Bennet’s edge in fund-raising, and the odds get a bit daunting for Romanoff.  Still, this weekend should give AR a boost as he cruises to top line.  After that, we’ll see.

        3. Recent Colorado history shows that a state assembly victory hasn’t produced much of a boost for the winner. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen this year, but it’s hard to find an example of a recent winner who really got a big boost from the convention.

          Some of this probably lies in the fact that the whole caucus process is very confusing for the average voter. If you think about it, they saw headlines in the newspapers in March about caucus victories, and next week they will see headlines again about state assembly (caucus) victories. And then, they’ll read about how all of this won’t really be decided until the August primary. It’s hard to get a boost from the assembly when the vast majority of people don’t even really understand what is happening.

  4. To me, the most startling part of this poll was the GOP Presidential preference:

    Palin 29%

    Romney 25%

    Huckabee 19%

    Where did they find these people?

  5. 1. Buck is building momentum while Norton is losing it – if that becomes the conventional wisdom, that can really accelerate in the last couple of weeks.

    2. Buck will get a nice boost from the state assembly. Norton will be left scrambling to petition on.

    3. I still haven’t heard from Norton a compelling reason why she should win. Yes a compelling argument for a Republican Senator, but none for Jane Norton.

    1. That ship has sailed, David. Norton isn’t “left scrambling,” she announced in early April she’d be petitioning on. And if coverage of the Palin visit rivals the boost Buck gets from the assembly, it’s basically a wash. But you’re right, the poll shows the momentum is with Buck, just like most every objective measure has shown since mid March.

      1. I don’t get mad at anyone for not giving me an interview – it’s politics and they make the political calculation deciding if an interview with me will help or hurt. It’s not personal, it’s a political judgement.

  6. IMO this is still too close to call. Two good candidates that are three months out from the primary. Let’s face it folks, the majority of the voting public is more interested in either whether they will have a job in a few months, or where they will be going on vacation this summer. At this point it’s still mostly political diehards like us that are paying attention to all this.

    If Sen. Bennet wins, Coloradopols will deserve high praise for their methodology. There are many Democrats that just a few months ago thought that he wouldn’t make it. Pols called it early and has stuck by that call.  If Romanoff wins the primary, and then wins in November, then its quite possible that some of rules for contested races will have been rewritten.

    Stay tuned…

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