UPDATE (11:25): The big Denver paper and many of the other big TV stations have some major problems with their reporting. The Denver Post, for example, had Buck ahead of Bennet 48-46, on the strength of a 52-45 advantage in Boulder. A quick check of the Boulder Clerk and Recorder's website has Bennet leading Buck 67-29. There are a lot of somebodies who should have caught this immediately -- there's no way Boulder County would go solid red for any Republican.
We recommend sticking with the results from Fox 31, which not only has a page that seems to actually load correctly, but isn't making any obvious errors that we can see.
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UPDATE (11:16): It looks like we may be headed for at least one state legislative recount. In HD-29, Democratic Rep. Debbie Benefield trails Republican Robert Ramirez by 148 votes (50.34% to 49.66%).
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UPDATE (11:12): That didn't last long. With 56% of ballots counted, Bennet and Buck are now tied at 47-47.
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UPDATE (11:00): Buck has pulled ahead of Bennet for the first time tonight, leading 49-46 with 49% of precincts reporting.
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UPDATE (9:50): It's looking like the race that will have the biggest impact from an ACP candidate will not be the one anybody expected. The Secretary of State race is neck-and-neck, but the ACP candidate is already pulling 6% of the vote. Buescher may well win this seat by virtue of the American Constitution Party.
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UPDATE (9:44): The percentage of precincts reporting continues to rise, and Michael Bennet continues to hold a 50-45 lead over Ken Buck. This is not good news for Buck, because early returns should have favored him (Republicans voted in higher numbers than Democrats in early and absentee voting). Given Buck's numerous gaffes in the last two weeks of the campaign, it's not likely that late voters are going to choose him over Bennet, so it's hard to see how Buck is going to make up 5 points with 27% of the vote already tallied.
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UPDATE (9:08): It's always fun to see those really early returns that show absurd numbers. In HD-22, Democrat Christine Radeff is pummeling Republican incumbent Ken Summers 7,875 to 12. Yes, 12. For a few more minutes, anyway.
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UPDATE (9:05): Republican Cory Gardner is being declared the winner in CD-4.
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UPDATE (9:03): The Secretary of State race is coming down to the wire, and may be decided by the number of votes pulled in by the American Constitution Party candidate. Meanwhile, the race for Attorney General seems to be widening in favor of incumbent John Suthers.
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UPDATE (9:00): Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter has been declared the winner in CD-7.
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UPDATE: More details from Fox 31. Apparently Gardner's campaign has pulled the ad from every station on which it had been running:
Apparently, the ad mistook the vote of Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, who did vote yes on the budget, for that of Markey, the first-term Democrat who is fighting hard to defend her seat in Colorado's predominantly Republican fourth congressional district.
"We get these disputes all the time, and they're usually really gray and we can't do anything," [Fox 31 Station Manager Peter] Maroney said. "In this case, it was prima facie that there was a screw-up, it seemed so blatantly wrong to me and so black and white, that we went back to the agency that books advertising for Gardner and asked for a response from them."...
...The ad was quickly becoming a flash point in this high-profile race since it began airing on Tuesday.
In a debate Tuesday night, Markey asked Gardner directly if the mistake was an oversight or intentional and called on him to take the ad down. He never responded during the hour-long forum held in Loveland.
The new, corrected ad is now running in place of the original on all TV stations in the state that had been airing it.
We don't know what "prima facie" means, but it sounds bad.
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According to a press release from Rep. Betsy Markey's campaign:
KDVR Fox 31 today became the first television network in the United States to refuse to air a candidate's campaign commercial because the ad is patently false.
Representative Cory Gardner's latest attack ad criticizes Colorado's Betsy Markey for a vote taken by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
"We applaud Fox 31 for standing up to Rep. Gardner's bald-faced lies," said Markey (Betsy)'s campaign spokesman Ben Marter. "The people of Colorado are seeing a lot of awful negative campaign commercials this year, but through all the misleading clutter, Fox 31 decided that Rep. Gardner's latest lies are too egregious to broadcast. Rep. Gardner should be ashamed of himself and should apologize to the people of the Fourth Congressional District for lying to them."
This is more bad press for Republican challenger Cory Gardner one day after it was revealed that Gardner's negative TV ad incorrectly accused Betsy Markey of votes that were actually taken by Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey.
We're mystified why Gardner's campaign doesn't just admit the error and make a quick editing change to the ad, rather than face the bad press that comes with being the first campaign in the country to see its television ad pulled -- and from a Fox TV affiliate, no less (while Fox 31 isn't really connected to the national Fox News, the average voter reading about this probably doesn't know that).
It's bad enough for Gardner's campaign to make another stupid mistake with the initial ad, but it's inexcusable to compound the error by not just doing a simple re-edit. Media coverage from this is going to continue to hurt, because it potentially makes voters question all of Gardner's negative talking points against Markey (Betsy, that is).
Full press release after the jump. Note the "bald-faced lie" quote from Markey spokesperson Ben Marter, an obvious side joke poking fun at a Gardner press release from last week.
UPDATE #2: Rep. Ed Markey (the Democrat from Massachusetts -- the male Markey) chimes in with his own quote:
"As the other Markey in Congress, I've always admired and respected Betsy's intelligence and political independence. The fact is, we don't always vote the same way, and we don't even look alike! I'm wondering whether all of the attacks Cory Gardner has levied against Betsy over the last several months were based on a fundamental confusion over exactly which Markey he is trying to attack."
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UPDATE: We've created this handy-dandy tool that allows you to quickly figure out which Markey you are trying to discuss -- Ed or Betsy (just trying to do our civic duty!):
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That's the new ad up from CD-4 GOP candidate Cory Gardner, attacking incumbent Betsy Markey--one little, well actually not so little problem, is likely to see it pulled pretty quickly. Betsy Markey voted against the Obama administration's 2010 budget along with a number of other "Blue Dogs," Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is the Markey in Congress who voted for the budget. Rep. Markey's (that is, Betsy Markey of Colorado) release follows, says spokesman Ben Marter, "Rep. Gardner's new attack ad is lousy with the same already-debunked lies and misleading claims, but if there were degrees of 'false', this one takes the cake." And our favorite quote from the release: "Colorado deserves better than Gardner's half-baked hit jobs," added Marter. "Frankly, Massachusetts deserves better too."
We'll be honest, we were expecting this mistake--but we thought one of the innumerable 527s glomming onto this race would have made it, not Cory Gardner's campaign itself. It is kind of sloppy; two weeks from the election, this can't be the first time they've run afoul of the wrong Markey.
This is one of the main reasons we've always maintained that Markey has a better-than-prognosticated chance at holding onto her seat. Gardner's campaign has made so many unforced errors that all add up to a big problem in a close race. This latest ad is a perfect example; this silly, stupid, preventable error is going to lead to news stories that point out the fact that Markey voted against the Obama budget in 2010.
This line about Markey opposing Obama's budget would not have been written about otherwise, but thanks to Gardner's bumble, voters across CD-4 are going to hear, once more, that Markey might not be the lock-step Democratic voter that Gardner wants to portray her to be. Some of those voters might also start to question whether other parts of Gardner's ads have been falsely attributed to that other Markey guy. That's a pretty harmful blow to Gardner's overall narrative.
The National Resources Defense Council released polling results today showing that voters think favorably of congressional candidates who support clean energy legislation.
This is interesting news, particularly in CD-4 here in Colorado, where Rep. Betsy Markey has been attacked in Republican ads for voting for last summer's comprehensive energy bill. According to polling results, a majority of voters are supportive of those efforts:
Voters from Connecticut to California and Michigan to Florida are more likely to support candidates who support an energy bill that cuts climate change pollution, based on new poll results released today.
New surveys by Public Policy Polling (PPP) for the NRDC Action Fund from 23 key Congressional Districts show that voters favor a clean energy plan that creates jobs and limits climate change pollution by an average of 52 percent.
Voters supported clean energy legislation and by a clear majority in 21 out of 23 races, with two races in a statistical tie. Moreover, they were more likely to support candidates who supported such a bill by an impressive 20-point spread...
...The NRDC Action Fund selected these districts based on ratings from independent analysts that showed these incumbents were in close races and because the outcome of these contests could determine which party will control the House of Representatives.
"Our poll presented our opposition's main, misleading talking point - that a climate bill is akin to an energy tax," said Heather Taylor-Miesle,NRDC Action Fund director "Voters overwhelmingly rejected this idea in favor of a bill that creates millions of new jobs, reduces our use of foreign oil, holds corporate polluters accountable and cuts the pollution that causes climate change.The poll results challenge political spin which says a 'yes'vote on ACES will hurt candidates running for re-election. The results show that clean energy and cutting pollution are actually issues voters support"
Is independent Tom Tancredo now becoming the de facto Republican candidate for governor of Colorado? He's now moved to within four points of Democrat John Hickenlooper to turn the race into a toss-up.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Colorado finds Hickenlooper with 42% support, while Tancredo, the candidate of the American Constitution Party, earns 38% of the vote. Support for Republican Dan Maes continues to fall and now stands at 12%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Less than two weeks ago, Tancredo earned 35% of the vote to Hickenlooper's 43% and Maes' 16%. That shifted the race from Solid Democrat to Leans Democrat in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard. Now the race moves to a Toss-Up.
First off, we don't believe for a second (and neither do most informed politicos in Colorado) that the governor's race here is anything close to a toss-up. Democrat John Hickenlooper is going to be elected governor -- he's been too far ahead for too long, and he has significantly more resources than Tom Tancredo.
But news of this poll from the notoriously right-leaning Rasmussen Reports is not actually helpful for Colorado Republicans. Tancredo is going to (rightly) tout these polling numbers as proof that he can defeat Hickenlooper, which will do two things: 1) Convince more potential Republican voters to choose Tancredo over GOP nominee Dan Maes, and 2) Give a big boost to American Constitution Party candidate Doug Aden in CD-4.
According to Rasmussen, Maes is sitting at 12% of the vote, just two points away from falling under the 10% required to cause Republicans to lose their "major party" status. More significantly, any rise for American Constitution Party candidate Tancredo makes Aden look more credible as well, and just about every vote that Aden receives is a vote that would have otherwise gone to Republican Cory Gardner in CD-4.
Rachel Boxer, the spokesperson for Republican Cory Gardner's campaign for congress in CD-4, might have put out this press release a tad too quickly. It's always a good idea to read these things over again, or else you end up with headlines like this:
Betsy Markey resorting to bold face lies
We're guessing she meant to say "bald-faced lies" but perhaps correct grammar is just another one of those tricks that Rep. Betsy Markey uses to fool her constituents. Or maybe Markey really does lie in darker colors (you can always tell if she is telling the truth if she speaks in a slanted tone like this).
The full press release is after the jump (and no, the whole thing isn't bold faced).
Here's another reason why we think some national prognosticators are really off on their assessment of CD-4. From a press release from the campaign of Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey:
Betsy Markey raised $858,000 in the third fundraising quarter of 2010, bringing her total raised to more than $3.1 million, the most ever raised cycle to date by a House candidate in Colorado history.
"I have been humbled again and again by the huge outpouring of support for this campaign," said Markey. "We are gaining momentum and excitement, but we've never taken anything for granted and we'll continue to work harder door to door and person to person to win this campaign."
98% of the campaign's 3rd Quarter donors were individuals, and a full third of total contributions came from first-time donors.
Markey's $3.1 million raised for this cycle is really an incredible number. For comparison's sake, the Republican Senate candidate, Ken Buck, had raised all of $1.2 million in total through the end of July; Buck's Q3 fundraising numbers are not yet available, but it's quite possible that Markey will have outraised the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
Republican Cory Gardner, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey in CD-4, recently received the endorsement of former CD-4 Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in a fundraising letter sent out to supporters that also included the endorsements of former Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer and former GOP Senators Hank Brown and Wayne Allard.
The support of Brown and Allard, and to a much lesser extent, Schaffer, is nice for Gardner to have. But does he really gain anything from getting the vocal support of Marilyn Musgrave? After all, the two-term Republican Musgrave was so unpopular that she barely survived her 2006 re-election before getting pummeled by Markey to the tune of 12 points in 2008 (and then being named the "Sorest Loser in America").
We don't see the benefit of Musgrave's endorsement, but what do you think? Vote in the poll after the jump.
On another note, we did get a good chuckle out of the fundraising letter containing Musgrave's endorsement. The prose is gooey-thick and maybe a tad overboard on the hyperbole with lines like this:
When we see the "Gardner for Congress" campaign, it's like something right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
We weren't sure which Norman Rockwell painting Musgrave and friends was referencing, but after a quick search online, we found it:
In a poll released today by The Hill, 11 of 12 House Democrats are trailing Republicans, and while we can't tell you more in the way of analyzing the results for other races, we can postulate some ideas on the CD-4 polling results. We mentioned this poll briefly in an earlier post, but the significance of these numbers are worth their own subject.
To make it easier to read, we produced a condensed version of the initial crosstab results from The Hill polling. These results below answer the question: "If the elections for Congress were held today, which candidate would you vote for in your congressional district?"
We've written before that any poll in CD4 must ask about all four candidates in order to be considered completely accurate, but any way you slice it, this is good news for Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey and bad news for Republican challenger Cory Gardner.
The only other public poll released in CD-4 (which came in early September) showed Gardner with an 11-point lead over Markey. We questioned the accuracy of that poll, just as we question the accuracy of today's poll, because neither included American Constitution Party candidate Doug Aden nor Independent candidate Ken "Wasko" Waszkiewicz (more on that in a minute). But even if you forget the third-party candidates, Markey has closed the gap from being 11 points down to now being within the margin of error and behind just three points (41-44). More importantly, Markey has the advantage over Gardner with both Independent voters (43-39) and Senior Citizens (43-40). Also notable is that Markey attracts the support of 11% of Republicans, while just 2% of Democrats expressed support for Gardner.
Now, back to that third-party thing. Colorado is showing a proclivity for voting in higher numbers for third-party candidates in 2010, and CD-4 has always been more fond of third-party choices than elsewhere in the state. If Aden and "Wasko" had been included in this poll, it's very possible that Markey might be leading the race at this point. In fact, the only poll that included all four candidates that has been released (a Markey internal poll) showed Wasko and Aden pulling a combined 7 percent of the vote, with Markey and Gardner tied at 38 percent apiece.
With mail ballots beginning to drop in the next week, Markey is clearly trending in the right direction. We've always said this race is a toss-up, but if you had to bet on it today, you'd have a hard time talking yourself into Gardner.
That's the new TV spot from Women Vote!, a project of EMILY's List--a very strong and emotionally compelling attack on GOP candidate Cory Gardner's vote against autism coverage for children in the state legislature. From the accompanying release:
In Colorado, WOMEN VOTE! is up on the air for two weeks with a significant buy, presenting Kate Dran, the mother of an autistic child, discussing her efforts to help her son, and Cory Gardner's vote in the state legislature against requiring insurance companies to cover critical services and treatments for autistic children. The ad will run on broadcast and cable television. EMILY's List WOMEN VOTE! last went on the air in Colorado during the summer, with an ad about Cory Gardner's record that moved women voters double digits.
"The more that women learn about Corey Gardner's record in the state Senate, the more they know that he is wrong for them," said Denise Feriozzi, Director of WOMEN VOTE! "From voting against cracking down on dead beat dads who skip child support payments to voting against coverage for children with autism, Corey Gardner's votes have real consequences for Colorado families. This ad makes powerfully clear, in Kate Dran's voice, how Cory Gardner thinks about children and families. We are all waiting for Gardner to answer the question: What if Chris was his child? Would he still have voted to deny him coverage?"
In related news, the Colorado Independent'sScot Kersgaardreports this morning on a new poll indicating the CD-4 race has tightened considerably. This poll didn't even include the third party candidates in the race, which is bad news for Gardner.
Penn Schoen Berland's new poll for The Hill has this race at 44% for Gardner, 41% for Markey, with 14% undecided--well inside the margin of error, much better than Marilyn Musgrave was showing at this point in 2008, and evidence that despite the desire of national pundits to move this race into the "over" column, it is anything but. Markey is leading in the poll among independents and senior citizens, which is exactly where you'd want to be at this point in the race.
And this ad is not going to help Gardner push these numbers back.
Here's another reason why we think some national prognosticators are really off on their assessment of CD-4. From a press release from the campaign of Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey:
