October 12, 2008 04:45 AM UTC

"Fix" Confused By Persistently Close Senate Race

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Suppose a 10-point Udall lead will chill everybody out?

We check in with Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza, who has profiled each month this season the Senate seats most likely to switch parties. This month’s lineup keeps the Colorado Senate race between Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer at #3, but with a twist: Cillizza is starting to wonder out loud what the deal is. Why isn’t this race over?

3. Colorado (R): Almost no one on either side of the political aisle believes that former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) is going to beat Rep. Mark Udall (D). And yet, despite the well-documented struggles of Schaffer, Udall has yet to put the race out of reach. Why not? That question haunts paranoid Democratic strategists. (Previous ranking: 3)

We see two readily apparent reasons for this race being closer than it “should.” The first is Udall’s absorbing an avalanche of bellicose attacks from Schaffer through the summer with what many felt was a less-than-robust response. The second is the disproportionate amount of money being spent by independent groups hoping to swing this race towards Schaffer, vilifying Udall in every way imaginable.

You probably have a few more reasons; Udall hasn’t run the strongest campaign in history, a point most Democrats will concede. Udall has benefited from the fact that Schaffer comes across so priggishly, and his campaign as such assholes with the media, that many reasonable independents who might otherwise gravitate towards him are tuning out. And the deafening barrage of negative ads against Udall reached their point of diminishing return several months ago.

None of which adds up to Udall “putting the race out of reach,” it’s true–but a relatively narrow win, for whatever reason, will still count for a win three weeks from now.