U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 13, 2010 01:57 AM UTC
26 Comments
What is Jane Norton going to have to do to counter it, to prove her conservative bona fides? Call for war with Iran? Drop the top income tax rate to 20 percent?
I honestly believe he’s in this thing at least until State, maybe all the way to the primary.
if he doesn’t make the convention he won’t petition on, but he isn’t going to pull out before the convention.
You can’t build an operation without it.
Some endorsements matter, but the best endorsements come with checks.
until he refused to play ball and drop out when Norton got in, like Frazier did. So he got cut off from the usual sources of contributions. He had $276K in the bank at the start of the year.
Buck really could have a shot at winning this primary, but not when you raise $40k a quarter. There are state house candidates who raise that (okay, not many, but it happens).
Which may be what Buck needs most.
But they’re otherwise not a source of votes, even in a primary. I get the sense that even other rightie blogs think they’re a bunch of whackjobs and laughingstocks. Erickson seems to me a heavyweight only in the literal sense.
Besides, Redstate has been griping about Norton for a while now. Doesn’t seem to have had much effect.
…RedState.com comment section on his endorsement of Buck, this is a different type of race than the Brown-Coakley race, the Crist-Rubio primary, etc…
The endorsement means a whole lot, but it still leaves Norton as the winner in this primary without too much of a fight. Unless, as EE and Moe Lane like to say, they make the Colorado Senate primary a “hill to die on,” Buck’s not going anywhere.
…wasn’t a primary. And it was held all by its lonesome at the forefront of the battle of over health care. Suppose, for the purpose of this argument, that the public felt exactly the same way in November as they do today. Unemployment is still 10%, yada yada yada. Scott Brown doesn’t win the race. But it was held at a time when there was virtually nothing else to concentrate on in politics (yes, there was health care, but the two were essentially interchangeable after Brown declared himself the “41st vote”). So it became a national race, and the intense scrutiny and boat loads of national money poured in, allowing him the ability to get his message out–a luxury the Massachusetts GOP candidates aren’t accustomed to.
And the evidence of Norton being squishy on certain core conservative issues consists only of her vocal support of Ref. C. Not to say that doesn’t play a role in the primary, but it’s not a deal-breaker for a lot of GOP primary voters. What else can we base our opinion of her on other than her words? She was Lt. Governor, which isn’t really that difficult. You pretty much just have to get picked by the candidate that’s going to win. And she did. After that, there are no votes, and the Governor takes the lead on most policy issues.
Crist, however, has a long history of being super squishy on conservative issues, and what it really comes down to is “the hug.” It’s undeniable that Obama isn’t exactly Mr. Popular among GOP primary voters. Nor is the Stimulus package. So a picture of Crist hugging Obama is all the ammunition Rubio needs to defeat him. And he will. But Norton, as has been noted by ColoradoPols, is at least talking the talk. She’s got the standard boiler plate issue pieces on her website. There isn’t really all that much else to go on. So for most of the people who will be casting a vote, the choice is between a conservative candidate (Buck) and a presumably conservative candidate (Norton), only one of them has proven to raise 13x as much as the other.
(So I looked up the redstate link; I guess you’re ColoradoRed over there?)
Clearly it’s very different from the Coakley-Brown race, although one thing they might have in common is that redstate did help raise a lot of money for Brown pretty quickly. (And I have to admit I was wrong about this; I thought they didn’t actually have much influence among the base donors, but they do.)
But it seems more similar to Crist-Rubio. My understanding is that Crist has also been making a lot of conservative noises lately, but his past is a bigger deal. Norton seems similar in this sense. Resentment of Ref. C seems like a big deal around here. My sense of Republican primary voters is that they are not willing to forgive a big “mistake” like that, regardless of what she says now. Though of course I don’t know very much about what they think, nor do I know all that much about the Florida race aside from what you’re saying.
A couple of big moneybombs for Buck could change her cash advantage substantially, if Erickson can get the same kind of results as he helped get for Rubio. Moneybombs aren’t everything (look what they did for Ron Paul), but under the right circumstances they mean a lot.
Maybe Buck could do a “demon sheep” ad on Norton?
…in the GOP, you go to Erick Erickson or you go to Jim DeMint. They’re likely to drown the same people in cash between RedState and the Senate Conservatives Fund.
To be honest with you, I don’t think most voters in Colorado know what Ref. C is. Or if they do, they have a very loose understanding of it. This goes for Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between. It’s not something easy to understand, like a picture of a candidate hugging Barack Obama. Like I’ve been saying though, the only reason I say Buck has no chance is his (lack of) money. He’s got a message. He has the support of the right people. Unfortunately, I don’t see “a couple of big moneybombs” coming his way. In Florida, the GOP-nominee is almost a lock to become the next Senator in Florida. So DeMint and Erickson are really just haggling over price.
Whatever we think of Norton, she couldn’t possibly be as much of a liberal or a corporate-tool as Charlie Crist. And the chances of the GOP candidate winning in Colorado are good, but certainly nobody would call them “a lock.” Norton’s numbers are better, and it would be a huge waste of EE & JD’s time and clout to put together those moneybombs on behalf of Buck. They really hate Crist, and they really loved the idea of making Ted Kennedy’s seat the one that killed health care reform. But their opinions aren’t so strong about either Buck or Norton. Sure, they have a preference. But the occasional request for money is a far cry from “a couple of big moneybombs.”
I hope I’m wrong, and I hope Buck pulls it out, even if he doesn’t poll as well against Bennet at this point. But I just don’t see it.
says “it limits TABOR” or even looser, “it raises taxes.” That’s quite enough, I think. I imagine people would feel stupid if someone asked them why they’re supporting Rubio, and they said “the hug.” The stimulus is a bigger deal, and their understanding of the stimulus is probably about the same (“it raises taxes”). A Republican primary seems like a very emotional event, based on very limited actual information, to an outsider like me.
Hard to say how much money Erickson can generate. Last year there was some sort of big effort to raise money for a Democratic challenger to some Republican who said something stupid (I don’t remember who), and redstate threw out a seemingly casual request for money to defend the Republican. I was surprised that the Republican ended up raising as much as the Democrat, since the Democratic fundraiser seemed to be promoted more heavily.
The fact that Crist is an incumbent in some sense gives the righties more reason to hate him, but I’m not sure it’s qualitatively different. McCain ran more as a right-winger in 2008 than he had in 2000, and the righties still resented him in spite of it. They seem to stay pissed off for a long time.
…said that his words were empty. He would go back to his shamnesty plan, and raise taxes, and this, that, and the other thing. Sure, most of us held our noses for him, but we knew what we were voting for. Crist is much the same. The voters of Florida know he’s squishy. He has been for a LONG, LONG time. And in case I didn’t explain it clearly enough, I wanted to say that “the hug” is representative of his support for the Stimulus package, and more broadly, Obama’s agenda as a whole. That’s something the voters would understand. And it’s more recent than Ref. C is.
Maybe we can agree that it doesn’t matter which side you’re on, most voters allow lots of emotion and little fact to play a part in the way they vote. Even a lot of well educated people feel like they just don’t have the time to pay close attention to the details that make all the difference. Many others, especially the younger generations, just flat out don’t care. It’s a sad fact about politics the world over.
with your last paragraph. Of course, it’s easier to see in the other side. 🙂
n/t
You guys quit being so rational and civil with each other. You’re creeping me out!
BR- Are you a native Boulderite? If you are, then you and I are the only two R natives and we need to get into witness protection immediately.
Born at BCH. Every school I ever went to, Elementary through college, is within about 2.5 miles of all the others.
Born at BCH that is.
See, I’m older – I was born at Memorial. Is that even a hospital any more?
You would have two policy geeks fighting the campaign on the issues. And we would have a clear difference of philosophy between them. It will be a great campaign in the general.
I look at the McCain campaign during the priamry when he was out of money, down in the polls, and everyone said stick a fork in him – he’s done. People were embarassed that he kept campaigning.
And then… in the primiries he started winning. Part of it was vote splitting among his opponents and winner take all – but he won.
This helps keep Buck a credible candidate. He does need to pick it up on fundraising but between that 350K independent ad buy, this endorsement, and Norton’s incompetent campaign – he’s got a real shot.
To me the strangest part of this whole thing is with the people who are running Jane Norton, they should have the most professional campaign in the state, not the lamest. My guess is the powers that be talked her in to running, but then provided zero help and guidence (probably assuming the primary was a slam-dunk).
He does need to raise more money, but you can’t discount the 527 help he is and will get.
He does need to raise more money, but you can’t discount the 527 help he is and will get.
but it doesn’t appear to have done much good. The Statue of Liberty Ken Buck ad played in heavy rotation before the Rasmussen poll, and Buck’s numbers (and inferred name ID) didn’t budge. There comes a point where it’s hard to (as Pols put it) keep the lights on, and raising in the tens of thousands when your opponent raises a half million is nearing that point.
From what I’m reading, she seems to have a good campaign going.