The Mellman Group (Harry Reid's pollster from 2010), has some very encouraging news:
Our recently completed survey shows Senator Mark Udall with a narrow lead in the race for U.S. Senate. Udall garners 44% to 41% for Congressman Cory Gardner, with 15% undecided. Support for Udall is more intense than support for Gardner, with 39% indicating strong support for Udall and only 32% strongly supporting Gardner. The vote is tied among independents, with both candidates garnering 38% of the vote.
In a 5-way race including minor-party and independent candidates, Udall leads Gardner by a 2- point margin (39% Udall, 37% Gardner) with 5% of the vote split among the 3 other candidates.
This analysis represents the findings of a survey of 800 voters representing the likely 2014 general electorate in Colorado, who were interviewed by telephone October 13-15, 2014. The study was conducted by live interviewers who contacted both cell phones and land lines. The survey utilized a registration-based sample which models the likely electorate. 38% of the sample was made up of registered Republicans, 32.5% registered Democrats and 29.5% unaffiliated or members of other parties. The margin of error is +/- 3.5 percentage points at a 95% level of
confidence. The margin of error is higher for subgroups.
I also received this chart from Udall's campaign e-mail today showing the most recent Benenson Group poll giving Udall a slight lead over Gardner:
Now full disclosure: Mellman Group does internal polling for the Senate Majority PAC and the Benenson Group does internal polling for the DSCC. Waiting on the full Benenson Group's poll results. Both groups have decent track records when it comes to polling accuracy. I was a little worried about Udall from the latest polling but I sill believe Udall can win this race. It's clear Udall knows the race is tight but he can beat Gardner based on what he's been saying on the campaign trail recently:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
"We're going to shock a lot of the pundits out there saying, 'Oh, Colorado's going to slip away, it's not really a nice light blue color,'" Udall told the hundred or so supporters who attended his rally. "Can we prove them wrong? Let's prove them wrong!"
In recent days, Udall's race against Republican challenger Rep. Cory Gardner has encountered some difficult obstacles. A series of polls from earlier this month all show Udall behind by anywhere from two to six points. And last week, The Denver Post's editorial board endorsed Gardner, saying that Udall had run an "obnoxious, one-issue campaign" focused on attacking Gardner's views on reproductive rights.
At the rally, Udall pushed back against the paper's argument. "Rallies are important, debates are important, television ads are important ... editorial boards, they're not so important," he said, to cheers from the crowd. "If the Denver Post doesn't think reproductive rights are important, that's their choice, right?"
Udall then mentioned, as candidates tend to do when they lose out on newspaper endorsements, that he won his first bid for the House of Representatives without the paper's backing.
"In 1998 I wasn't endorsed by The Denver Post, and guess what? I won." - Huffington Post, 10/16/14
And Udall's campaign has been heavily focused on ground game:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/...
Udall is facing a tough challenge from Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, and he told supporters Thursday evening that, amid polls shifting slightly in Gardner’s favor, “the pundits are starting to weigh in and they say we don’t have a chance.” He scoffed and told the few dozen volunteers: “You all are the game-changers.”
That’s because Democrats in Colorado have regularly outperformed polls on Election Day, partly due to their well-organized get-out-the-vote efforts. Sen. Michael Bennet recalled that, in 2010, no poll showed him beating his Republican challenger, but he managed to eke out a narrow victory due to his campaign’s turnout effort.
Udall’s is three times as large, partly at the urging of Bennet, who is now chairing the Democratic Party group that helps senate campaigns and has helped boost field efforts in Democratic Senate races across the country. The effort is called The Bannock Street Project, after the Denver headquarters of Bennet’s 2010 re-election race.
There’s also a new wrinkle that Democrats are count on working in their favor. Over Republican objections, the Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a bill sending mail-in ballots to all voters and allowing citizens to register to vote up through Election Day. That’s expected to increase the number of voters and help the party with the most organized effort turn out more of its supporters. - CBS Denver, 10/17/14
And Udall has a big name out of the campaign trail:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
With mail ballots arriving at voters' houses here this week and the in-person voting period about to start, one of the Democratic Party's biggest stars came to Colorado on Friday to rally the party base for endangered Sen. Mark Udall's reelection bid.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, along with Udall and fellow Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, drew a packed afternoon crowd to a chemistry lecture hall at the University of Colorado, where she exhorted students and other attendees to vote quickly and then get others to join them.
"What's going to determine this race in Colorado is you and people just like you across this state," the senator from Massachusetts said, discounting the millions of dollars worth of TV ads that have flooded the state. She added that Colorado could be the key to her party keeping control of the Senate. "I want to make it clear: We're all looking at you, Colorado. Yeah, we're looking at you."
Udall "is doing all he can do," Warren said later. "The fight comes to you."
Facing a difficult electoral environment, Democratic Senate campaigns across the country are hoping their expensive investment in get-out-the-vote efforts can deliver enough seats to maintain the Senate majority. Colorado, where Udall trails GOP Rep. Cory Gardner in public polling after leading a few months ago, may be the capital of that effort; the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee named its national field program, the "Bannock Street Project," after one of DSCC Chairman Bennet's Denver field offices from his close 2010 campaign.
Rallying the Colorado students Friday was a small part of that effort. "How many of you have voted?" Warren asked the crowd, as a scattered number raised hands. "How many are going to vote in the next 24 hours?" Nearly everyone in the auditorium raised hands and cheered.
After Warren's speech, field organizers with Udall's campaign intercepted people streaming out of the auditorium with sign-up sheets for volunteer shifts. "Come down on Sunday for two hours," one organizer told two young women. "We're talking to Democrats, getting them to turn their ballots back in, and it's a huge help." - National Journal, 10/17/14
A strong ground game has always been a key part of Udall and past Colorado Democrats' strategy to win tight races:
A robust ground operation -- that other key piece of the Bennet model -- was also a big reason why he outperformed the polls on Election Day, as Udall must now aim to do. Udall's campaign sent out a memo last week boasting about how they had topped Bennet's operation in key categories: 25 field offices in 2014, versus 15 in 2010; 100 field organizers versus 40; and 3,200 volunteers in the last month versus less than 1,000.
Bennet beat the margin polling margin by nearly 4 points, according to Real Clear Politics. President Barack Obama did the same in 2012. Based on the polling now, that is the same sort of performance that Udall is going to need. So while critics might be mocking his strategy, if Udall can repeat the 17-point edge that Bennet had with women and his 2-1 margin with Hispanics, it won't matter.
"Bennet and Udall's campaigns are doing the same thing because they believe in science and polls," the Colorado Democrat said. "They're not doing this on a whim." - TPM, 10/15/14
The Denver Post accused Udall of trying to make this race a single-issue campaign by focusing heavily on reproductive rights and Garnder's record on Personhood. It almost looked like Udall's tactic was turning off voters but then this happened:
http://www.msnbc.com/...
Host Eli Stokols pressed Gardner further on the Life at Conception Act: “Do you really think that just telling me it’s not a Personhood bill makes it [not one] … Does saying that make it true?” Gardner never really answered.
By the October 15 debate between Gardner and Udall, reporters were fed up.
“You continue to deny that the federal Life Begins At Conception Act, which you sponsor, is a Personhood bill to ban abortion, and we are not going to debate that here because it’s a fact. Your co-sponsors say so; your opponents say so; and independent fact-checkers say so,” co-moderator and local NBC reporter Kyle Clark said. “So let’s instead talk about what this entire episode may say about your judgment more broadly. It would seem that a charitable interpretation would be that you have a difficult time admitting when you’re wrong, and a less charitable interpretation is that you’re not telling us the truth. Which is it?”
“Again, I do not support the Personhood amendment,” Gardner replied. “The bill that you’re referring to is simply a statement that I support life.”
“Why does no one else think that?” Smith persisted. “That’s what we’re getting at.”
“Again, I have answered this question multiple times,” Gardner said, accusing Udall of focusing on the issue too much. “The people of Colorado deserve more than a single issue,” Gardner said.
To be clear, that “single issue” would in fact be a set of issues – reproductive rights – that are on the political stage largely because of record numbers of abortion restrictions introduced by state-level and national Republicans, and because of lawsuits like Hobby Lobby and its brethren, cheered on by all major Republicans, that undermine contraceptive access.
So far, Gardner’s outright obfuscation – you could call it “metaphysical nihilism,” but “lying” might be simpler – has worked. He has an edge over Udall in many polls and in a recent survey, Gardner has narrowed Udall’s advantage with women, from 13 to 7. Udall has been repeatedly asked if he has gone too far in attacking Gardner on reproductive rights. Someone had nicknamed him “Mark Uterus,” implying his interest was somehow prurient. But whether you agree with him or not, Udall’s answers have been straightforward about his positions – even on more politically unpopular later abortions. - MSNBC, 10/17/14
Gardner is depending on his smile and personality to win this race:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
But Gardner manages to come across as different from the dislikable pack: the consummate guy-next-door, you’d-have-a-beer-with-him politician. A photogenic 40-year-old with two young kids, Gardner approaches every volunteer at a meet-and-greet here in suburban Denver with a smile and a backslap and the enthusiastic air of someone who treats every stranger as a friend. The Denver Post endorsed the him last week in the state's U.S. Senate contest, in large part because he is running a positive campaign based on personal attributes, and his opponent, Democratic incumbent Mark Udall, is not. Udall is running a race so negative that at a debate in Denver last week, a Denver Post political reporter referred to him as “Mark Uterus” because so many of his ads target Gardner’s opposition to abortion.
Back in February, top GOP aides in D.C. were nothing short of giddy when Gardner opted to drop his House re-election bid and run for the Senate, switching races with ultraconservative Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, who dropped his second Senate bid to run for Gardner’s House seat. From the coffee shops off Capitol Hill to an Applebee's in Kentucky, a consensus among Republican political operatives began to emerge: The gregarious, hard-working Gardner, who like them was once a Senate aide and a D.C.-based communications staffer, was the dark-horse pick of the cycle.
“I think there’s a likability about him,” the Senate’s No. 3 Republican in seniority, John Thune of South Dakota, told Yahoo News at the Gardner volunteer event in Greenwood Village, a Denver suburb. “He’s got a record, obviously, as a member of Congress ... but I think that style and tone matter. And I think the way you communicate, whether you have a winsome way, [matters]. Cory is the kind of candidate that wants to appeal to people’s hopes rather than prey on their fears, and I think in politics, people are looking for that kind of candidate.”
For weeks, public polling has shown the race between Gardner and Udall to be within the margin of error. And in this final month of the campaign, Democrats plan to use $15 million on a bulked-up field operation modeled on the successful 2010 organization of now-Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Michael Bennet, also of Colorado. A Democratic source in the state said that while Bennet’s campaign had 50 paid field organizers covering the Centennial State in 2010, the Udall team is now employing 100. - Yahoo News, 10/15/14
Now Udall's strategy is working but he's also disproving that he's not running a single issue campaign:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
In a new TV spot released online Tuesday, the Colorado Democrat relies on his privacy bona fides to distance himself from an unpopular president and appeal to the state's libertarian sympathies. "Mass collection of our phone and Internet records started under a Republican president, continued under a Democratic one. I won't tolerate it," Udall booms in the ad. "As Coloradans, our rights include the freedom to be left alone."
The spot also highlights Udall's call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan, an Obama friend, following revelations that the agency spied on Senate staffers conducting a review of Bush-era "enhanced interrogation" practices.
Udall's new ad—simply dubbed "Freedom"—is also a rebuttal to the Denver Post's endorsement last week of Gardner. Calling Udall a "fine man with good intentions," the Post ultimately condemned Udall, saying "he is not perceived as a leader in Washington."
Udall has highlighted his record as a digital-privacy hawk in earlier ads. Yet pinning part of his campaign's closing argument on the need to reform the government's intelligence agencies stands out in a midterm cycle where few candidates from either party have made it much of a campaign issue. - National Journal, 10/15/14
Plus Udall and his supporters have also been making climate change a real issue in this race:
http://blogs.wsj.com/...
But Democratic Sen. Mark Udall appears to be betting that is not the case in Colorado, where he and this year’s biggest Democratic donor, Tom Steyer, are pressing the issue.
In a speech at an energy event Tuesday sponsored by an array of energy and business groups, Mr. Udall cited climate change as one of the biggest differences between himself and his challenger, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner. Mr. Gardner has said he thinks the climate is changing but questions the extent of human involvement and cautions against an overreaction by government.
Mr. Udall called the issue a “fundamental difference between my opponent and myself,” asking how those who don’t believe in climate change can formulate solutions.
Mr. Gardner, speaking at the same event, didn’t address climate change and instead criticized proposed federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations that seek to cut carbon emissions from the nation’s fossil-fuel power plants. The rules are the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.
“The EPA regulation isn’t a Colorado-based approach,” Mr. Gardner said. “The idea is that Washington knows best.”
Since late last month, Mr. Gardner has been ahead of Mr. Udall in most major polling, though it’s a tight race and most polls show the two running within the margin of error. The Colorado race is among several that could help determine what party controls the Senate next year.
Mr. Steyer is among those seeking to influence the outcome. The climate activist organization he founded, NextGen Climate, on Tuesday said it was planning to host a series of events and an advertising campaign as part of what the group is dubbing “Science Denier Week.”
Its political spending arm, NextGen Climate Action Committee, has spent nearly $5 million in the state, mostly criticizing Mr. Gardner, according to Federal Election Commission data and a spokesperson for NextGen. So far this election cycle, Mr. Steyer has donated more than $40 million to Democratic organizations and candidates, which is the most any contributor has given to a group that discloses its donors, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. (Several nonprofits—including those backed by the industrialist Koch brothers—have spent millions of dollars on elections this cycle, but are not required to disclose their donors.) - Wall Street Journal, 10/14/14
The League of Conservation Voters have also been giving Udall some help on the campaign strategy:
Plus there's this issue:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/...
Andrea Hermosillo rode for hours to protest at her neighbor’s office.
The high school junior lives only a few blocks from GOP Senate candidate Cory Gardner in Yuma, a small town on Colorado’s high plains.
But this summer, Hermosillo went to the congressman’s main office, in a city closer to Denver in Gardner’s sprawling eastern Colorado district, for a sit-in to demand that he support granting citizenship to many of the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.
“It was kind of weird, but it felt we had to be there,” Hermosillo said. “It’s important he know that it’s people in his town who feel this way.”
Bill Breithauer also lives in Yuma. The 72-year-old retired farmer has known Gardner since the two-term congressman was a child.
As Breithauer nursed a coffee at Yuma’s central gathering spot, a restaurant called The Main Event, he made it clear that he thinks what Hermosillo wants is an outrage.
“How are they going to give them citizenship if they don’t speak the language and they’re up to no good?” Breithauer asked. “Cory’s all right. He knows what’s what.”
This is the riddle for Gardner in his race against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall in the only state among the dozen or so in play this year with both a competitive Senate race and a sizable population of Hispanic voters.
Yuma is Colorado in a microcosm.
The town, like the state, has been transformed by Latin American immigrants who have arrived to open businesses, labor in fields and hog farms, and take seats in public school classrooms.
They have been welcomed – the Yuma town council in 2010 urged Congress to pass the kind of legislation Hermosillo demands – and met with suspicion.
Udall has called on President Barack Obama to limit deportations of people living illegally in the U.S., and he voted for a Senate bill that eventually would have granted them citizenship.
Gardner has straddled the fence.
He opposes the Senate bill, but speaks warmly of immigrants. It’s an indication of how he has been shaped by his town and his place in a party where supporting an immigration overhaul is a political risk. - CBS Denver, 10/18/14
And Udall has excellent numbers with Latino voters:
http://thehill.com/...
The Colorado survey from the National Council of La Raza gives Udall 55 percent support from occasional Hispanic registered voters, while Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) takes 14 percent support.
But about a third of those polled have yet to decide on a candidate, suggesting Republicans have an opportunity to dig into Udall's considerable lead with the Democratic voting bloc.
Still, it's unlikely that in the final three weeks of the race, Gardner would be able to narrow Udall's lead among Hispanic voters to a point where they're no longer a possible advantage for the Democrat.
And Democrats are heavily focused on canvassing Hispanic voters to turn that possibility into a certainty. The survey shows 80 percent of respondents say they're almost certain to vote this fall, and a plurality, 43 percent, say they're more enthusiastic about voting this year.
Democrats have long said the growing Hispanic population in Colorado would be advantageous as they battle to hold onto the seat, which has become fiercely competitive since Gardner entered the race earlier this year. But the issue of immigration reform has largely been absent from the race, and some Democrats have speculated President Obama has lost favor with Hispanics by promising executive action on deportations this summer and then postponing it until after the elections.
The poll suggests otherwise. But it does come on the heels of two less favorable statewide polls for Udall, both of which showed Gardner with a slight lead over the incumbent and underscored the need for the senator to turn out base voters, including Hispanics.
Udall said in a statement to The Hill that the poll "confirms what we've been hearing on the ground — that communities across Colorado are coming to understand just how far backward Gardner would take us." - The Hill, 10/14/14
And Udall's campaign is reaching out to them:
http://www.timescall.com/...
Longmont-based immigration-reform activists pitched a group of volunteers Saturday on what they said is the importance of convincing Latino voters to choose incumbent Mark Udall over challenger Cory Gardner in this year's U.S. Senate contest.
Gardner, a Yuma Republican who now represents Colorado's 4th Congressional District, which includes Longmont, "has failed us" when it comes to supporting other federal lawmakers' bipartisan efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reforms, said Sonia Marquez, the North Region organizer for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.
Marquez told about 20 people who'd gathered to prepare for a door-knocking canvass of some of Longmont's registered Latino and Asian and Pacific Islander voters that the local effort — along with similar get-out-the-vote drives elsewhere in Colorado — will be important in helping re-elect Eldorado Springs Democrat Udall.
"Latinos votes have been a deciding vote in many elections," Marquez said. "The power is there. We just have to motivate people."
The Longmont gathering was one of several such Saturday events sponsored by the Colorado Voter Accountability Project, whose organizers said in a news release will eventually try to reach as many as 45,000 Latino and Asian and Pacific Islander voters to tell them that Republicans "obstructed immigration reform in the House of Representatives this year" and to ensure that those voters "know how candidates have voted on this and other key issues.
Voter canvass kick-off events were also scheduled for Denver and Pueblo. Longmont's was held in office space at 515 Kimbark Street that the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition shares with Intercambio, a nonprofit organization that provides classes and training in English, life skills, and self-sufficiency, as well as other resources to immigrants. - Times-Call, 10/18/14
We can still win this race, it's just all about turnout here. Click here to donate and get involved with Udall's campaign:
http://markudall.com/