March 24, 2011 08:16 PM UTC

Colorado Pols/RBI Poll: Romer 22%, Mejia 10%, Hancock 9%

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Coverage of today’s poll from FOX 31’s Eli Stokols.

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This is a poll of the Denver mayoral race, released by Colorado Pols and conducted by Denver-based RBI Strategies & Research. The results show Chris Romer with a solid lead, but perhaps more importantly, he is the only candidate with any real name recognition; Romer’s total favorable rating is 40%, while the next closest candidate is James Mejia at 26%. Favorability ratings for Michael Hancock (22%), Doug Linkhart (21%) and Carol Boigon (19%) are incredibly low this close to Election Day.

Here’s a more detailed summary from RBI research director Kevin Ingham:

RBI mayoral survey shows low voter engagement with just 3 weeks before voting begins

A survey of likely 2011 municipal voters in Denver shows that while Chris Romer is currently leading, a plurality of voters remain undecided and have yet to significantly engage on the race.  When asked who they would vote for in the race for Mayor of Denver, 22% of respondents said they would vote for Chris Romer and 10% said James Mejia with Michael Hancock (9%), Doug Linkhart (7%), Carol Boigon (5%) and Theresa Spahn (2%) all receiving support in the single digits.  Another 5% said they would vote for a different candidate and a 40% plurality say they remain undecided on which candidate they will support.

This survey is a useful snapshot of the status of the race at a time before voters have began to engage.  Though Chris Romer is clearly leading, much of this can be attributed to his name ID advantage and the race remains wide open.  Early horserace surveys, such as this one, tend to show that support is highly correlated to name ID.  Therefore, with such a large portion of the likely electorate unfamiliar with the candidates, the high number of undecided voters is not surprising.  In fact, fully 32% were unable to provide hard name ID for any of the six candidates presented during the survey interview.

As the major mayoral candidate begin to communicate with voters, the race will be sure to become more engaged and is likely to become highly fluid over the next few weeks.

RBI Strategies & Research conducted a telephone survey of 400 Denver voters who indicated it was likely that they would vote in the May 2011 Municipal Election. Interviews were conducted March 21 – March 22, 2010 by Standage Market Research of Denver, Colorado, a market research firm specializing in telephone survey interviewing. Respondents were randomly selected from a list of Colorado voters, purchased from Voter Contact Services, who registered after the 2010 General Election or voted in the 2010 General Election and either 1) voted in at least one off-year election dating back to 2003 or 2) registered after 2009 off-year election.

The margin of error for a survey of 400 interviews is ±4.9% at the 95% confidence level. The margin of error is higher for subsamples within the full sample.

Other sources of error not accounted for by the stated statistical margin of error include, but are not limited to, question wording, question order, and refusal to be interviewed.

NOTE: RBI Strategies is not involved with any Denver mayoral campaigns.

Mr. Ingham will join our readers at 1PM today for a Q&A session on the results of this poll. In order to keep things as orderly as possible in what is likely to be a popular discussion, we’d appreciate it if our readers held their questions for Mr. Ingham until 1PM when he arrives to answer them. In the meantime, you’re welcome to comment on the poll results themselves.

Please be respectful in your comments and questions for Mr. Ingham. We appreciate the time that he is making for this Q&A session, and whether you agree or disagree with anything he says, there is NO reason you need to voice your opinion in a rude or disrespectful manner. We will not tolerate bad behavior from anyone during this Q&A session, so please be good Polsters.