December 16, 2024 02:29 PM UTC

Magellan Polls The 2026 Dem Governor's Race Because Why The Hell Not

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• by: Colorado Pols

The last two weeks of December are generally considered a quiet time for politics, especially as the ecosystem assesses the results of this year’s momentous election which has effectively scrambled conventional wisdom and given rise to deep introspection among Democrats across the country–even here in Colorado where the party rode out the “red wave” better than most blue states. Nonetheless, into this period of downed tools and deep thoughts comes a new poll from GOP-aligned (but generally reputable) Magellan Strategies on behalf of the nonprofit Healthier Colorado, asking Colorado Democratic and unaffiliated voters about their preferences in the still-remote 2026 Democratic gubernatorial primary:

No poll this early can be considered anything other than a discussion item, but the first thing we see here is Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s heightened profile over the past year going back to the Trump v. Anderson Supreme Court case, which though unsuccessful substantially increased Griswold’s name ID among Democrats largely supportive of disqualifying Trump over the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. More recently, the heavily publicized but inadvertent leak of voting machine passwords by Griswold’s office jacked up both her name ID and unfavorable rating, but her net positive favorability indicates her support among Democratic primary voters is–at least for now–holding steady.

From there, the poll is mostly good news for Boulder’s popular Rep. Joe Neguse, who easily tops the rankings for “very favorable,” and has lower negatives among Democratic primary voters than elder statesman and former U.S. Senator Ken Salazar who hasn’t appeared on the ballot in Colorado in 20 years. At this point, Neguse and Salazar along with term-limited Attorney General Phil Weiser are the most often named potential contenders for the governor’s race, so we’ll be watching to see how these numbers move in next year’s polling.

And there you have it, folks! Something else to talk about. We’ll admit to being a little bit grateful.