November 16, 2017 11:31 AM UTC

Poll: Cary Kennedy Would Kick Tom Tancredo's Butt

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• by: Colorado Pols

Ernest Luning writing for the former Colorado Statesman:

A new statewide poll of likely Colorado voters shows Democrat Cary Kennedy ahead of Republican Tom Tancredo by 16 points in a general election match-up between the leading gubernatorial candidates.

According to the survey, conducted over the past week by Colorado-based Democratic polling firm Keating Research and obtained exclusively by Colorado Politics, Kennedy, a former state treasurer, leads Tancredo, a former congressman, 50-34 percent, with 13 percent undecided and 3 percent saying they’d vote for another candidate even when pressed to choose between the two. No other candidates were listed in the poll…

Though partisan pollsters, Keating Research and the North Carolina-based Democratic firm Public Policy Polling were the most accurate pollsters in Colorado for last year’s presidential election, predicting Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the state by 5 points — almost precisely her margin on Election Day — according to Real Clear Politics.

Among Democrats Keating Research has an excellent reputation for accuracy, so these are definitely numbers that anyone following the Democratic gubernatorial primary should be paying close attention to. Luning also refers to another recent poll showing Rep. Jared Polis also ahead of Tom Tancredo, though by a much smaller margin. Because the Keating poll didn’t include other candidates besides Cary Kennedy, a methodological apples-to-apples comparison isn’t really possible here–we would speculate that other Democrats would also score well against Tancredo had they been matched up.

With that said it’s certainly a good data point for Kennedy’s campaign to circulate, and it highlights the danger Tancredo poses in the long term to Republicans. Ever popular with the ideological base that decides GOP primaries, Tancredo’s liabilities only truly emerge in the general election. That’s where the party in Tancredo’s case would presumably end.

Of course, we said that about Donald Trump too.