Last Wednesday's Ipsos poll showing GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck up by nine points over Democrat Michael Bennet widened a lot of smiles on the right side of the aisle--Republican-friendly polling firm Rasmussen Reportssobers them up today.
The U.S. Senate race in Colorado between incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Ken Buck remains very competitive.
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Buck picking up 47% support, while Bennet earns the vote from 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate while four percent (4%) are undecided. Earlier this month, it was Buck 46% and Bennet 41%.
Though Buck has consistently led the incumbent since March, this is the highest level of support Bennet has received all year. [Pols emphasis] In each of six previous surveys stretching back to May, the former Denver school superintendent had earned between 39% and 42% of the vote. Bennet was named to the Senate early last year when Ken Salazar resigned to join President Obama's Cabinet. A county prosecutor, Buck has captured between 44% to 48% of the vote during that same time frame...
We've always said that polling done more than four months out of an election is relatively worthless, but now that we're nearing the 60 days until E-Day mark (Sept. 4, if you're counting), respondents are starting to voice opinions based as much on the candidates as on their Party affiliation. Case in point, check out the changing Very Favorable/Very Unfavorable numbers from a few weeks ago:
Candidate
8/12 VF/VUF
8/30 VF/VUF
Ken Buck
17%/ 20%
19%/ 26%
Michael Bennet
20%/ 29%
21%/ 30%
What the Very Favorable/Unfavorable numbers show is that Buck's overall lead is based largely on the generic Republican/anti-incumbent advantage that has shown up in polls throughout the year. But voters don't actually like Ken Buck the candidate the more they get to know him (nor do they really like Michael Bennet, either). The bottom line is that this race is going to come down to the wire.
The back and forth on the [Social Security] issue in Nevada is a microcosm of what Democrats hope will be a broader debate in races around the country about what to do next on Social Security.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary, which is tomorrow, of Social Security becoming law, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has released a scorecard documenting 13 Republican Senate candidates who have expressed support for some form of privatization of the retirement system...
...Social Security is always a potent political issue but especially so in midterm elections where older voters -- to whom this issue is of critical importance -- comprise a larger segment of the overall electorate. (Older voters always vote.)
President George W. Bush's failure to pass a reform of the system played a role -- how much of one can be debated -- in the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in 2006 and Democrats are hoping it will mitigate their expected losses in this midterm.
We have long included Social Security as an issue that would come back to bite Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck, and it looks like Democrats are planning on playing that angle as much as possible.
While it may have made sense for Buck to go after Social Security while trying to woo Tea Party support for a Republican Primary, it's not helpful to have statements like these on the record in a General Election:
At a March forum, he drew hearty applause after calling Social Security "horrible, bad policy" and questioning whether the federal government should be involved in administering it.
"I don't know whether it's constitutional or not; it is certainly a horrible policy," Buck said. "The idea that the federal government should be running health care or retirement or any of those programs is fundamentally against what I believe. And that is that the private sector runs programs like that far better."
The ads write themselves: Vote for Ken Buck, and kiss Social Security goodbye! Anti-government conservatives may think this is great, but swing-voting senior citizens who rely on Social Security for their retirement? Not so much.
The Democratic "Unity" Rally was held this afternoon in Denver to show that things were just hunky-dorey for Sen. Michael Bennet and former challenger Andrew Romanoff (full press release from the Bennet campaign and from Colorado Democrats after the jump).
Said Romanoff:
"I am very, very proud of our grassroots team, and proud to see so many folks standing with us together in this united Democratic Party today. For not just my sake, and not Michael's sake, and not even for the sake of the Democratic Party, I'm asking you today to throw your support fully and unequivocally behind Michael Bennet for the United States Senate."
This is all pretty standard stuff in terms of the Kumbaya atmosphere, which makes it all the more curious that Colorado Republicans don't seem prepared to do the same thing just yet. Heck, GOP Gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes apparently can't even get a phone call right now from other Republicans.
We're playing a little bit of catch-up in providing our analysis of the various different outcomes from Tuesday's Primary. Spurred on by a good Politico story today from David Catanese, here's our thoughts on how and why Sen. Michael Bennet defeated Andrew Romanoff in Tuesday's Democratic Primary...
Make your predictions below on who you think will win the big statewide Primary races. Get them in before 7:00 tonight to make sure you get full bragging rights for a correct answer, and we'll think up some sort of prize for the person who makes the most correct predictions.
PREDICTIONS
U.S. Senate (Democrats)
U.S. Senate (Republicans)
Governor (Republicans)
Treasurer (Republicans)
Tiebraker: The total number of votes cast in the Republican Primary for Treasurer.
Make sure to put your predictions in a numerical, percentages format. For example: Walker Stapleton over J.J. Ament, 54-46
We thought we'd again start a new thread with this information (click for the earlier post), now that we've got the latest (and last) update from the Secretary of State's office on ballot returns. Here are the ballot return numbers as of 3:00 p.m. today:
*Party/ Ballots Returned Thus Far/ Total Active Voters/ Percent Returned Democrats: 310,671/ 817,458/ 38%
Republicans: 358,953/ 855,667/ 42%
As we wrote earlier, these numbers have already smashed previous turnout figures for a Primary Election in Colorado, and they don't include turnout for El Paso and Weld Counties (which were not all-mail ballot counties). This could very well mean that Michael Bennet and Jane Norton will be the winners of their respective primaries because of their name ID advantage. We'd say the same thing for Scott McInnis in the Governor's race, but we have a feeling the undervote in that one will be huge.
UPDATE #2: More interesting voter trends from Magellan Strategies, a Republican polling and consulting firm, show that at least 28% of Republicans and 32.5% of Democrats that have voted thus far are casting a ballot for the first time in a Primary Election.
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UPDATE: In 1998, Colorado saw primaries on both the Democratic and Republican sides, for both U.S. Senate and Governor. Turnout in the 1998 Primary was 25.5% for Republicans and 19.7% for Democrats, so we are well into record territory here.
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Kudos to the Colorado Secretary of State's office, which is going above and beyond the call of duty in reporting ballot returns early today. The numbers below are as of Noon, while a second report will come out after 3:00 p.m.
*Party/ Ballots Returned Thus Far/ Total Active Voters/ Percent Returned Democrats: 298,062/ 817,458/ 36%
Republicans: 340,788/ 855,667/ 40%
Considering that El Paso and Weld Counties are two of those that are not conducting all-mail balloting in Colorado, it's safe to say that these numbers are going to rise significantly. This is really good news for the campaigns of Sen. Michael Bennet, Jane Norton, and Scott McInnis, because (as we've said repeatedly) the more well-known candidates almost always benefit from higher than normal turnout. Both Democrats and Republicans are voting in record numbers, easily surpassing turnout from any of the three previous Primary races.
The one caveat here is on the Republican side, where there have been rumblings for weeks of Republicans undervoting on their ballots. So while it's true that a record number of Republicans are returning their ballot, it may not be true that a record number of people are actually voting in the Senate or Governor Primary. We'd say it's more likely that people are undervoting the Governor's race than the Senate race, but the point here is that these returns may not mean as much for McInnis as they will for Bennet.
Richard Coolidge, the Public Information Officer for the SOS Office, also included these handy tips with today's report:
The question is "When" not "If" provisional ballots are counted. Primary night results are only an initial tabulation. The OFFICIAL count is due 13 days after the primary when the canvass board meets and reviews the votes. This 13 days allows time to verify provisional ballots and time for overseas military ballots to arrive (8-day extension for these ballots).
When will results be posted? Clerks are allowed to process ballots 15 days before the election. For the most part, counties will have most ballots cast up until Monday-ish processed and ready for tabulation after 7:00pm tonight. The rest of the results will be forthcoming. Obviously, your patience waiting for these results is most appreciated.
POLS NOTE: In order to make comments easier to read and understand, we decided to create a new post for these returns, rather than just updating the original post.
Below are the turnout numbers reported a little after 3:00 p.m. today by the SOS. Remember that there is some lag time in the reporting process (in other words, there are more ballots returned than what is listed below, but what is listed below is what the various County Clerks reported to the SOS today):
*Party/ Ballots Returned Thus Far/ Total Active Voters/ Percent Returned Democrats: 279,462/ 817,458/ 34%
Republicans: 314,264/ 855,667/ 37%
Richard Coolidge of the Secretary of State's office also included this note in today's ballot update:
Colorado County clerks may begin processing (not tabulating) ballots 15 days before the election. All 64 counties should have a good sample of mail ballots tabulated after 7:00pm tomorrow evening. Remember, 46 counties are voting exclusively by mail, so ballots received Tuesday may not be included in that original release of results. The remaining 18 counties will still have mail results, but will also need to factor in votes cast at precinct polling places (like El Paso, Pitkin, Las Animas, etc) or at vote centers (like Weld, Park, Archuleta, etc).
Our read on these numbers? The Michael Bennet campaign is going to be sweating it out tomorrow, hoping to see turnout reach levels cross well into the 300,000 level (the higher the turnout above 300,000, the better the odds that Bennet wins).
As for the GOP turnout, we're curious to see how big the undervote might be. Turnout is pretty high already considering the amount of grumbling from Republicans over their (lack of) great choices for Governor, and to a lesser extent, U.S. Senate, but if most of the returned ballots are casting a vote in the race for Governor and Senate, this benefits Scott McInnis and Jane Norton in their respective races.
New polling out this morning from Public Policy Polling has some interesting numbers across the board in the three top-ticket Primaries in Colorado:
U.S. Senate (Democrats) Michael Bennet: 49%
Andrew Romanoff: 43%
Undecided: 9%
U.S. Senate (Republicans) Jane Norton: 45%
Ken Buck: 43%
Undecided: 12%
Governor (Republicans) Scott McInnis: 41%
Dan Maes: 40%
Undecided: 19%
It looks like all of these races are going to come down to the turnout numbers, with higher turnout favoring Bennet, Norton and McInnis (because these three have the highest name ID in their respective races). The Secretary of State's office will release the latest turnout figures after 3:00 p.m. today, so check back here for that update.
Michael Bennet's holding on to a small lead the day before the Democratic primary for US Senate in Colorado, 49-43 over challenger Andrew Romanoff.
Snip
Both candidates are relatively popular with Bennet holding a 57/24 approval rating and Romanoff sporting a 52/27 favorability spread. Bennet's approval rating with primary voters was 53/22 when PPP last looked at the race in May so the spirited primary campaign doesn't appear to have had a negative impact on his overall popularity within the party, a good sign for him if he does indeed move onto the fall.
The Federal Communications Commission Thursday suspended its weeks-long series of talks with Internet providers on Net neutrality, dealing a blow to efforts to produce a deal that the agency could take to Congress.
The decision to cut off negotiations marks a major political setback for Chairman Julius Genachowski, whose office reached out to stakeholders six weeks ago to strike an agreement and avoid a public battle over rules that would treat all users' Web traffic equally.
But the end to industry discussions - which a source close to the FCC talks blamed entirely on news that Google and Verizon separately sought some form of net neutrality agreement - could now force the FCC to take a more aggressive approach to solidifying its broadband authority.
FCC chief of staff Edward Lazarus stressed in a briefly worded statement that the agency has no plans to back down on Net neutrality, months after a federal court in a case involving Comcast essentially nullified much of the agency's broadband authority...
..."Any outcome, any deal that doesn't preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs, will be unacceptable," he said.
Colorado's congressional delegation has taken different positions on Net Neutrality. Republican Rep. Doug Lambornhas opposed it, while Democratic Rep. Jared Polishas been a supporter. Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter signed onto an odd letter last fall that sort-of questioned Net Neutrality. Both Colorado Senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, are supporters of Net Neutrality.
Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate as the next member of the Supreme Court. Both Colorado Senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, voted in favor of Kagan's confirmation.
We were critical of the latest ad from Democrat Andrew Romanoff, called "Greed," for saying that Sen. Michael Bennet "pushed companies into bankruptcy and looted a billion dollars." While there are certainly votes and other issues that Romanoff could use to criticize Bennet, this ad went way beyond just negative campaigning because it outright lied in accusing Bennet of stealing from companies.
Well, the three biggest Denver news networks have all come out with their "Truth Test" or "Fact Checks" or whatever other clever name they have for checking the accuracy of campaign ads. The result: 3 out of 3 say the main message and components of the "Greed" ad are false.
UPDATE #3: In an email just sent out by the Romanoff campaign, Romanoff repeats the same canard as earlier. Clearly this has become a huge problem for the campaign, and it didn't need to be. If only Campaign Manager Bill Romjue had just kept quiet for a few more days...answering the question about DSCC support may very well prove fatal to the Romanoff campaign.
Here's Romanoff's newest statement:
I don't take any PAC money now, I have not done so at any point in this campaign, and I will not do so in the general election. I don't know how to make my stand any clearer.
To set this matter to rest, I took one further step today. I vowed to ask the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to exclude any PAC dollars from contributions or expenditures it makes on my behalf.
We don't want to get too caught up in semantics here, but there's an important phrase in this statement. Romanoff says "I vowed to ask" the DSCC to exclude PAC dollars. He didn't vow "not to accept PAC dollars," because that would be impossible. He knows the DSCC cannot separate PAC money out of its bank account and give Romanoff only the "PAC-free" funds, so he's really just vowing to ask for something he can't have.
And on that note, we vow to ask Santa Claus for a unicorn this Christmas!
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UPDATE #2: Romanoff has issued a statement in an attempt to clarify: "After I win the primary, I will ask the DSCC to honor my pledge by excluding PAC dollars from any contributions or expenditures it makes on my behalf."
This statement is, of course, absurd, because there is no way to separate PAC money from non-PAC money when it all goes into the same account. This would be like saying you want to only eat the healthy parts of a cookie after it has already been baked.
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UPDATE: Romanoff's campaign told Politico that the Colorado Statesman article referenced below was "inaccurate." In its own story today, the Statesman stands by its original reporting:
The Statesman's editor and publisher said the newspaper stands by its story...
...Romanoff sat with a reporter from The Statesman for an interview immediately following a Jan. 19 press conference where he declared he was still running for the Senate - after rumors swirled he was instead considering a run for governor - and made his most uncompromising statement to date about his refusal to take money from political action committees, which he labeled part of an "incumbent protection racket."
"Andrew said what he said in response to a direct question about the DSCC," said Statesman editor Jody Hope Strogoff, who has covered Romanoff's political career for more than a decade. "If he'd like to make a case he was answering a different question than the one he was asked, he can do that. But he's had more than six months to correct the record."
Strogoff pointed out the Romanoff campaign hasn't been shy about challenging newspaper stories that have appeared in The Statesman or elsewhere.
This is the automated call going out to registered Democrats across the state against Sen. Michael Bennet on behalf of Andrew Romanoff, from a group calling itself "New Leadership in Colorado"--who wants you to know that they're "not one of those shady groups calling you."
But they are attacking Bennet for "voting to give a bailout" to "big banks who wrecked our economy."
It shouldn't even be necessary to note that this robocall is telling a bald-faced lie--Michael Bennet wasn't even in the Senate when the "big bank bailouts" passed in late 2008. But it's clear enough that being factual, or even remotely close to factual, is not the goal of this robocall--because robocalls are considered to be an under-the-radar way of planting messages with voters you don't necessarily want to claim as your own, that all makes sense.
According to the Colorado Statesman, writing last week about other negative radio ads that suddenly cropped up against Bennet, "New Leadership in Colorado" is a 527 run by a former AFL-CIO chief of staff named Debbie Wamsley. Who, evidently, is totally cool with lying to you if it makes you more likely to vote against Michael Bennet.
FRIDAY UPDATE: Here are the turnout numbers as of 2:45 p.m. today. It looks like a lot of voters are still holding onto their ballots:
*Party/ Ballots Returned Thus Far/ Total Active Voters/ Percent Returned Democrats: 245,477/ 817,458/ 30%
Republicans: 269,646/ 855,667/ 32% -----
Previous updates and original post after the jump
All campaigns (at least those that are really trying to win) eventually go negative in their advertising and messaging. Both candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate have long since crossed into negative territory. On the Democratic side, Andrew Romanoff first crossed that threshold about 10 days ago, which in response prompted the first negative ad from Sen. Michael Bennet.
The definition of a negative ad is focusing on a perceived weakness of your opponent, as opposed to pointing out your positive aspects, and we've never had a problem with that. But Romanoff's newest negative ad targeted at Bennet, which was ripped today by the major Denver newspaper, is different.
The ad, called "Greed" (embedded after the jump), says that while working for Phil Anschutz, Bennet "pushed companies into bankruptcy and looted a billion dollars."
You read that right -- Romanoff's ad essentially says that Bennet intentionally bankrupted companies in order to steal money from them. That's way beyond a negative ad because it's factually wrong. And intentionally running inaccurate ads to smear your opponent -- well, that's a crap move that's no better than Jane Norton using 9/11 imagery as a scare tactic. Nobody can say otherwise -- not with a straight face, anyway.
Obviously, Romanoff is pulling out all of the stops in an effort to upset Bennet, but in doing so he has flushed down the toilet the primary message of his entire campaign: That he is a "different" politician who wants to be a Senator "for the rest of us."
So long, "Regular Guy Andrew Who Won't Go Negative."
Hello, "Same Old Politician Who Will Say Anything In Order to Win." Maybe it will get him a Primary victory, and maybe it won't (we still think Bennet will ultimately win). But if it does...is it really worth the cost? Intentionally spreading egregious lies about someone in your own Party, just to win?
A group called "New Leadership Colorado" sent out a press release late this evening showing Democrat Andrew Romanoff within striking distance of Sen. Michael Bennet in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senate. "New Leadership Colorado" claims that it has no ties to either Romanoff or Bennet, but obviously their interests are with Romanoff (because there would be no other reason to announce this otherwise).
The automated phone survey shows Bennet leading Romanoff 44-40, with what they say is a margin of error of +/-3.6%. Given that every other head-to-head poll released to this point has shown Bennet with a double-digit lead, this is good news for Romanoff, right?
Maybe.
The polling and memo was done by a Democratic communications firm called Zata3, a name that should be familiar to many politicos for their robocalls, direct mail and other communications tools such as text messaging.
But what Zata3 does not normally do is polling. That doesn't mean that they definitely don't have these numbers correct, but they are not a polling firm. You hire Zata3 to do persuasion phone calls or text messaging -- not polling -- just like you wouldn't normally hire a polling firm to do your direct mail (or for a real-world example, you wouldn't go to a dry cleaner to buy a sandwich). This is no knock on Zata3, it's just that it seems odd that you wouldn't use a professional polling firm if you wanted real polling results.
We wondered when we first got the press release at 6:17 PM why anyone would release something this potentially helpful so late in the day; normally you would never send something to the press this late because it would almost certainly get buried and not make it on the news. But perhaps that was the point -- to put it out late enough that news outlets wouldn't have time to really check into the data and the "pollster."
Democrat Andrew Romanoffhas sold his Washington Park house and used most of the proceeds to shore up his underfunded Senate bid against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. As Eli Stokols of Fox 31 reports:
Romanoff, who bought his home one block of east of Washington Park in the 1990s, sold it to a developer for $360,000. From that, he loaned $325,000 to his campaign.
Last quarter, Romanoff raised $620,000 in contributions, his campaign's best showing to date. Bennet's campaign raised $1.63 million during the same period.
Given that the U.S. is suffering through the worst housing marketever, maybe Romanoff should be touting his real estate skills as a candidate.
