As I discussed here yesterday, of all the unexpected twists and turns of this year’s midterm election cycle, nothing has surprised and flummoxed me more as an analyst than the Senate race in Colorado between incumbent Democrat Mark Udall and Republican challenger Rep. Cory Gardner. Sen. Udall held a narrow but persistent lead in the polls all year until early September. Ever since, he has been trailing in virtually every poll, and the trend into October has been getting worse.
This has confused me for a couple of reasons. I can’t think of anything that Sen. Udall has done to arouse the anger of Coloradans. If he’s outspoken about anything, it’s government surveillance which I don’t think is something that would galvanize any opposition outside of the Intelligence Community. And when I look at issues within Colorado like new gun laws and marijuana legalization, I would think that they would hurt the governor who signed those laws more than a U.S. Senator who didn’t even vote on them. But Governor Hickenlooper is doing better than Senator Udall in every poll.
Given that Udall’s deficit in the aggregate of polls has grown to 3.8%, it appears that he will probably lose even if the polls this year are skewed towards the Republicans, which is probably the case.
Yet, Democrats are holding out hope, and perhaps with good reason. If there is any single factor that argues in Udall’s favor, it is a significant change in how Colorado conducts their elections. They have moved to a mail-in format, which means that most potential voters have received a ballot in the mail. This should help combat the typical drop off of Democratic votes in midterm election cycles considerably (studies differ on the likely impact of this change). Intuitively, it seems irrefutable that a mail-in option will allow a lot of busy workers to cast ballots who otherwise would not have had the free time on election day, and the increased ease of voting almost has to reduce apathy’s ability to cause disengagement. The more working class and disengaged people who vote, the better for Mark Udall.
Another potential boost for Udall is the difficulty that pollsters seem to have in contacting a healthy cross-section of the state’s Latino vote, and it may be that the polls have two problems in this regard. Their models may include too few Latinos and their pool of Latinos may skew too Republican. This may explain why pollsters have consistently underestimated Democratic support in recent elections. However, Harry Enten of 538.com says, “I don’t put much stock in any of these arguments.”
The best and most hopeful argument in Udall’s favor that I have heard is that he held his fire on his advertising campaign, allowing Gardner to dominate the airwaves in September in order to have an advantage down the stretch. Reports from Colorado are that Udall ads (from both the campaign and from outside groups) have saturated the markets in recent weeks and are currently ubiquitous. If progressive explanations for Udall’s deficit are accurate, that he hasn’t painted Gardner as the radical that he really is, that has changed now.
Does Udall’s inactivity on the air in September explain his fall in the polls, and can this late push similarly reverse the trend?
The final wildcard in this race is the Democrats’ ground game. Udall has an advantage in that the architect of the national ground game is the other senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, who used the same principles to surprise pollsters four years ago and win another term. Back in February, Ed called Bennet’s Bannock Street Project “the best possible path to mitigating the damage of midterm “falloff.””
Here’s the problem. If the Bannock Street Project is working as anticipated, it should be at least partially evident in the current polls. We saw what happened to the Republicans in 2012 when they convinced themselves that all the polls were wrong.
In my opinion, the polls are probably skewed a little bit Republican across the board, which means that Democrats who are polling one or two points behind may actually be even or even slightly ahead. But that is not going to be enough to save a politician who is behind by 3.8% in the aggregate of polls. Maybe Udall’s late advertising campaign will begin to tighten the race, but it needs to close or I have no choice but the predict a Gardner victory.
You’re right. Udall hasn’t done anything egregious, but if you were bombarded with those ads all summer, you might think otherwise. For me, I came to loathe Gardner. I just hope the Democrats didn’t wait too long to launch the counter attack, since voting has already begun.
Both Gardner and Ernst in Idaho are trying to run as stealth candidates, hiding their more extreme views from the public. Neither Udall nor Braley have gone after these issues strongly like Nunn went after Perdue’s outsourcing jobs record. If that’s what Udall is holding his media fire for, I hope it works. Gardner seems to be another GOP nutcake–state secession and nullification and nonsense.
Actually, over the past few weeks the airwaves have been flooded with ads painting Gardner as an extremist liar.
The polls suggest that that is having a slight effect in softening up Gardner’s support, but it’s not improving Udall’s numbers.
Yes, so the big question I have: Did pro-Udall forces wait too long or was the timing just right? I think your analysis below might hold some answers. I just don’t see why either the senate or the governor race is even close in a state where the economy is doing well relative to the rest of the country. Is the message that “Obamacare” is so bad really resonating in this state? What else do they have? Is it a fear that the government is going to take away peoples’ guns? Does the average voter care so much about Keystone?
All I know is that there was a huge crowd when Michelle Obama came to CSU in Fort Collins, which albeit is a college town, is also in one of the swing districts in the state, represented by Jared Polis. Hickenlooper, Udall, Bennett, Polis, and others were there. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren spoke in Boulder the day before.
I should also mention that I saw Cory Gardner on campus the day before and he is an alum of CSU. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. He was just standing in the building where I work. Was he just greeting people as they walked in or getting ready for a rally? Hard to say and I didn’t feel like talking with him.
Gosh, getting timing just right is one of the most difficult things of all. Democrats, with some good reasons, tend to shy away from early negative ads. But IMHO they make the mistake of considering that all negative ads are equal and are as likely to hurt as help. Pryor has a new one up that better demonstrates how to do it. Although I think tries to appeal too many disparate voter populations in one ad. Fifteen second ads for a single target market might have been more effective. As would have been getting them out there a bit earlier.
It’s too easy for me from a distance and without much knowledge of CO political dynamics to criticize how Udall has run his campaign. However, as a general rule, it’s not a good idea not to answer an opponent who is in the process of a media blitz glossing over his/her extremism. Braley also let Ernst do the same thing and turned around her high negatives and low positives. As I concluded in my other comment, it appears that Udall didn’t attend to his Latino constituents enough as Senator and during his re-election campaign.
Those outside ads before the GOP convention about all the plants Romney shut down was a huge reason Obama won. Looks like Gardner paid attention on how to define your opponent early.
Someone on Kos posted late last night another internal Udall poll showing Udall ahead one. That would be 3 polls in last 2 weeks (all internal) showing a Udall lead. At least a hangnail of hope….
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1339032/-CO-Sen-Mark-Udall-s-D-Internal-Poll-Gives-Him-A-1-
Point-Edge-Over-Cory-Gardner-R
I don’t fight the polls for the simple reason that they get closer to the actual results, particularly if one mentally projects to election day trends revealed in the better polls, than those that claim the polls are wrong. Some better than others, but none consistently so. However, with more or less digging, poll results conform to identifiable factors in a race. Yet, whatever it is in the 2014 CO Senate race is either too elusive to capture or doesn’t exist and therefore, the polls are off.
Checking into recent, statewide polling history in CO offers a possible clue.
CO Senate 2010 — in July the polls flipped from Bennet to Buck. In September, Buck suddenly surged and didn’t begin to decline until October, and then slowly continued to do so until 10/21 when he began a second surge. Bennet didn’t begin to improve his poll numbers until the beginning of October and continued to do so until election day, but remained behind Buck from July to election day. All of the last polls overestimated Buck’s actual vote by 2.2 to 3.2% and off on Bennet by -2.7 to +0.3%. (Not to be overlooked is that 2010 was the surge of the GOP.)
CO polling in 2012. Four of the six final polls did get the winner right. Except for PPP they all got the margin wrong by 2.4% to 8.4%. PPP had it closer to the actual results for months. Quinnipiac had Romney at 50% with a 5% margin at the beginning of Aug (an outlier compared to other contemporaneous polls); Obama at 48% with 1% margin a month later; and in October had it flipped with Romney at 48% with a 1% margin. Not an impressive track record in CO.
I focused on Quinnipiac in 2012 because this polling operation has had Gardner in the lead since July, not found in other polls until two months later, was the only one that had Gardner surging and Udall collapsing in early September, and has consistently had Udall’s support at far less than most other polls. In Q’s last three polls, the number reported for Gardner was 48%, dip to 47% and another dip to 46% and Udall’s 40%, up to 41% and again 41%. So, what made the late August and late September CBS/NYT/YouGov polls wrong? Shouldn’t the PPP poll with Gardner leading by 3% carry more weight since they performed well in 2012 and have Gardner up by 3%?
Unlike in 2012, there was a three month gap between PPP’s last two polls, the prior one was RV, and both samples were small. Will there be another CBS/… poll released before the end of voting?
Why is Tom Udall cruising to his re-election bid in the neighboring state of NM? And how can it be that CO would toss an incumbent DEM when the KS GOP incumbent governor and senator are in trouble?
The October polls (excluding CNN and Fox), including Qunnipiac, and the RCP aggregate all have Gardner right in line with how Republicans have fared in the last three elections, 46-47%. A slight erosion from the period of Gardner’s media blitz and before Udall’s began. What’s depressing Udall’s numbers is likely some under-polling of Latinos based on recent turn-out numbers. Two other, and inter-related factors, are probably more serious polling errors or Udall campaign errors. CBS News reports that Udall has been struggling to close the deal with Latino voters. They haven’t and they won’t move to Gardner; they’ll either vote for Udall or not vote.
And with those mail-in ballots sitting on their kitchen tables, they’re waiting for a good enough reason to decide to vote or not.
Why is Tom Udall cruising to his re-election bid in the neighboring state of NM? And how can it be that CO would toss an incumbent DEM when the KS GOP incumbent governor and senator are in trouble?
Well, NM and KS have GOP governors and CO has a Dem governor – so perhaps anti-incumbency has something to do with it. Seriously, it’s not like anyone thinks that “the government” (that is the perceived aggregate of all things governmental) is doing well, and Gardner’s trying to sell himself as a Broder-esque solution to that problem. To the less informed that probably sounds pretty good. And that’s also why the Gardner hit pieces on his extremist (i.e. standard wingnut) policy positions are the best bet that Udall has to beat him.
For the record, Gardner’s final pitch is straight out of Rove post-9/11 playbook – that we should all be scared shitless by Islamic extremist and only he is man enough to fight them off. I’m guessing that this won’t work, but perhaps I’m reading the uninformed voter wrongly on that.
“Seriously, it’s not like anyone thinks that ‘the government’ (that is the perceived aggregate of all things governmental) is doing well…”
And yet, wouldn’t you say that Colorado is doing pretty well, or am I just thinking about northern Colorado?
Again, I know: uninformed voter.
Tom Udall and Martinez are both incumbents. She’s not wildly popular but enough so to beat her opponent.
On November 3, 2012, Booman wrote:
“On the presidential level, I think there is a good chance that Obama will win all the swing states, which will mean that he will have the exact same result as in 2008 except that he will lose Indiana. North Carolina and Florida are too close to call and may require recounts. I don’t feel great about Colorado, either. The polling looks good but the early voting does not. Yet, I think the Obama campaign has momentum and that their ground game will help them modestly outperform expectations.”
I remember vividly reading that from Colorado that day and feeling more positive about an Obama win here, and I know some on this site, including Booman, have written about biased polls, so maybe, just maybe….