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March 12, 2010 10:41 PM UTC

PPP Pegs Romanoff 5 Points Up on Norton, Bennet Tied

  • 44 Comments
  • by: RedGreen

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Today’s PPP poll on the Colorado Senate race shows the same trend found in recent Rasmussen polling: Andrew Romanoff does better than Michael Bennet against the leading Republican, Jane Norton. According to a poll pitting the Democrats against the top three Republicans, Romanoff would beat Norton 44-39, while Bennet and Norton would be tied at 43-43. Both Democrats do well against Ken Buck and Tom Wiens.

After noting that Romanoff does better against Norton, Tom Jenson of PPP adds this analysis:

I would be cautious about declaring Romanoff to be the more electable candidate based on these early numbers though. Bennet has had all the negatives of incumbency- being associated with an unpopular majority party during a recession- without the positives- defining himself positively to the voters on the airwaves in the context of a statewide campaign. If Romanoff is still doing better than Bennet four or five months from now once the voters have started really paying attention the electability argument might carry more heft. [emphasis added]

In other words, there’s a built-in bias against incumbents that could vanish once the real campaigning starts. Just as Democrats have been aiming all their fire at Norton (and probably driving up her negatives), so have the Republicans been attacking Bennet (and ignoring Romanoff).

So this poll does show Romanoff has residual goodwill and has left a favorable impression from his years as top Democrat in the House, but it doesn’t show how he performs statewide when there’s a real campaign against him. And that’s coming, whoever the nominees are.

PPP also adds:

All three times we’ve looked at this race over the last year it’s come out very close, and I think the Colorado Senate race will prove to be one of the most competitive in the country this year.

Like it or not, having the money to wage one of the most competitive races in the country is going to be a deciding factor. Has Romanoff started to make up the enormous gap in fundraising? We’ll know in a couple weeks as the 3rd Quarter wraps.

Full results and cross tabs here.

PPP plans to release results of its Senate primary election polls for both Democrats and Republicans on Monday. Stay tuned!

Comments

44 thoughts on “PPP Pegs Romanoff 5 Points Up on Norton, Bennet Tied

  1. Using this analysis, could one also infer that Bennet’s clean campaign against Romanoff has backfired somewhat? Personally I think it’s the right way to go, but Romanoff seems to be the only one getting away dirt-free.

    1. I agree a “clean” campaign is the way to go.

      But it does seem that Bennet has skeletons to Hide.

      Bennet seems in bed with Wall street more so than Colorado.

      The more that comes out on Bennet the more I lean Romanoff. Frankly Bennet is appearing more and more to not be the one we should send up against Norton. (as cited here) nor to send back to the money playground…

    2. So we just don’t know how a negative campaign against him would play among voters who either already seem to like him or don’t know him very well.

      Romanoff, Buck, and Wiens are all relatively unknown. 45% voters have no opinion of Romanoff, 68% are ambivalent toward Buck, and 72% are unaware of Wiens.

      Again, it’s going to take lots of money to introduce a candidate to voters, who are largely paying attention to party or incumbency labels thus far.

      None of the candidates have run statewide (except Norton, who was on the ballot with Owens eight years ago), so they’ve all got some introducing to do. But the candidates can also be sure the opposition will do some introducing for them, too. That hasn’t happened yet with Romanoff.

      1. I think you’re right oon target. But that’s also the thing that’s gonna kill Romanoff, Buck and Wiens (when he decides he really doesn’t want to use all of that personal money he has “loaned” to his campaign.

        No one is running against Romanoff. He’s not been knocked about because he’s still not a serious candidate. If he can come close to Bennet’s numbers for the Q, discounting the massive surge from Obama’s visit, then he can start talking as if he’s got a snowball’s chance.

        Otherwise he’s just venting hot air…

          1. There’s a whole boatload of newbies that joined us yesterday that await you to challenge them. They’re in the smear diary that was posted yesterday to the front page. I do hope you’ll question their motives, even though they appear to be AR supporters.

            1. anyone who joins this site within the month of the caucus – and it appears there are several people on both sides doing just that.

              I am not too keen in engaging in those pie fights – where as with you MOTR, i at least have a mental image of the person who i have been blogfighting with for a year.

              Fyi – it seems that there are a lot dirtier things happening than just registering new names on a website –

              (a real doozy from a prominent Bennet supporter)

              And yes, I can source it, but will keep mum here because I can not believe that this person was authorized by Bennet’s staff to engage in what they engaged in.

              1. Why do you keep saying we’ve been “blogfighting for a year?”It’s been 5 1/2 months since Romanoff declared, not 12.

                Again, to reiterate–that’s 5 1/2, not 12.  Your candidate hasn’t been running that long, Wade. Please, please, please work on that tendency you have to exaggerate. I admittedly have a soft spot for you, whopper telling and all, but I think it hurts your credibility after awhile.

                And if you sincerely question those that showed up in a Friday smear diary written by

                this guy who’s been here less than 3 weeks

                or this guy

                or this guy

                or this guy

                then please do put your money where your mouth is and let the questioning begin!

                Or is just safe for me to assume that Ralphie is right about you?  

                1. if i am in charge of the people who write on this site. Both campaigns seem to suddenly have supporters here:

                  what about this

                  guy

                  or this

                  guy

                  or this

                  guy

                  frankly, anyone who has joined since the primary began, and has a really strong opinion one way or another is suspect, particularly ones joining since January.

                  And yes, the statement i made about the Bennet supporter engaging in dirty campaign tactics is sourced.

                  1. There are a lot of people you could have pointed to, but I don’t know about botw. If you had actually read his first diary, you might have noticed that he said he’s a lurker, but that he wanted to start posting. If anything, people who post one or two comments are the ones you should be suspecting. I’m really starting to regret validating you on your first “Hi, welcome to the site, I see you just posted.” If you want to start extending that same welcome to every new account, and not just the ones you personally don’t like, then that would be a different story.

                    And I think you might want to check with the campaign before you start accusing people of “dirty campaign tactics”. Either say what you want to say, or stop, because this beating around the bush, vague rumor mongering is utter nonsense. It’s not becoming of someone who claims to be looking for transparency on this site.

                  2. I’m sourcing 3 people that arrived on the same day to a guy’s diary who has only been here 3 weeks.

                    You have zero credibility with me and believe me, I’m trying harder than most with you. But I’m done trying.

          2. People are always saying “Cadidate _____ doesn’t get any respect on the Big Line!” but it’s just a silly (though often imitated) meaningless thing that’s supposed to be fun.

            What’s funny is that if they were real Vegas odds, people would be smarter to bet on the longshots, and not complain about the odds–especially if they think their candidate had the best shot to win.

            Think about it Wade, a $100 bet on Romanoff would get you $2000. If I bet $100 on Bennet, and he wins, I only get $800.

          3. I presume you’ve read the explanation at the bottom of the Big Line?

            You disagree with Colorado Pols’ line: do you own. Or not.

            Or just keep whining about they way they did theirs. Whatever works for you.

    1. I would be cautious about declaring Romanoff to be the more electable candidate based on these early numbers though. Bennet has had all the negatives of incumbency- being associated with an unpopular majority party during a recession- without the positives- defining himself positively to the voters on the airwaves in the context of a statewide campaign. If Romanoff is still doing better than Bennet four or five months from now once the voters have started really paying attention the electability argument might carry more heft. [emphasis added]

      I’m glad you emphasized this, RedGreen. While I’m not publicly supporting anyone, I’m really tired of Romanoff’s campaign touting second-order, general election numbers as proof that their candidate is a stronger general election candidate.

      Tom is right. No one’s campaigning against Romanoff; therefore, it’s no wonder that he’s surged into the lead. We won’t know how solid his numbers are until they’re tested by someone running against him.  

      1. but strategically it makes a lot of sense for Romanoff to use these numbers as a claim to general election electability. I don’t fault him for trying to be strategic, every campaign will spin, that’s the nature of the game.

        1. That’s why I said in my diary on the Rasmussen poll that showed Romanoff ahead that it was good news for the campaign.

          If there’s nothing they can do to differentiate AR from MB on policy, then they can at least try to show a difference in the polls–however flawed that reasoning may be from a statistical analysis standpoint.

  2. Doesn’t anyone have head to head Romanoff vs. Bennet or Buck vs. Wiens vs. Norton primary polling numbers?

    A rumor I am hearing from a lot of sources is that Bennet’s polling has Romnanoff ahead. But rumors are about as reliable as a blog post.  

    1. According to RedGreen, PPP is releasing those on Monday. I don’t know why there haven’t been more head to head numbers, but I’m not sure they matter this early in the race.

  3. about all this polling is that the only candidate running ads on TV is Norton, and pretty much the moment she went on TV, her poll numbers started going south against both Bennet and Romanoff.

    Why? Are her ads that bad? Do people disagree with her on issues?

    Or is it more insidious yet? Are people just opposed to whoever puts their face on TV?

    1. this early in the season in general. I kind of find it’s a turnoff this early in the game. It’s like the election cycle never sees a break anymore–it’s just endless.  

  4. Quoting RedGreen:

    Today’s PPP poll on the Colorado Senate race shows the same trend found in recent Rasmussen polling: Andrew Romanoff does better than Michael Bennet against the leading Republican, Jane Norton.

    Quoting Tom Jensen and leaving in the lead sentence of the paragraph:

    Andrew Romanoff actually leads Norton 44-39, reflecting other recent polling that has shown him doing better in general election matches than Bennet. I would be cautious about declaring Romanoff to be the more electable candidate based on these early numbers though. Bennet has had all the negatives of incumbency- being associated with an unpopular majority party during a recession- without the positives- defining himself positively to the voters on the airwaves in the context of a statewide campaign. If Romanoff is still doing better than Bennet four or five months from now once the voters have started really paying attention the electability argument might carry more heft.

    1. If you’d quoted the rest of the paragraph you found lacking (or the headline of the diary, for that matter), you would have discovered the exact numbers you sought. No one’s trying to de-emphasize Romanoff’s lead over Norton in this poll, but this diary tries to discuss what it means.

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