Pretty good and potentially really bad news out of Colorado today via Public Policy Polling. First the really bad.
Tom Tancredo continues to surge as Dan Maes' support completely collapses in the Colorado Governor's race and John Hickenlooper now leads the race by only a 47-44 margin with Maes getting 5%.
Hickenlooper's been unable to rise above the 47-48% mark in PPP's polls over the last three months. When Tancredo and Maes were splitting the vote relatively evenly it looked like that would be enough to win but now Hickenlooper really appears to be at risk of losing. Given the trajectory of the race it is not inconceivable that Tancredo could pick up a good chunk of even the small amount of support Maes has remaining and 38% of the undecideds are Republicans to only 23% who are Democrats. Those two data points suggest that Tancredo still has more room to grow.
With Maes committed to staying in, Colorado Republicans are poised to vote themselves into minor party status for the next two election cycles. If Maes doesn't get at least 10% of the vote as the Republican candidate, Republicans lose their spot at the top of the ballot. Tancredo's American Constitution Party would get one of the top two ballot slots with the Democrats. It's hard to believe that a candidate as batshit insane as Tom Tancredo could win state-wide in Colorado, but it looks as though it might happen. He's getting a slim majority of Colorado's large unaffiliated voting bloc, at 46-44 and 73% of Republicans.
The better:
The Colorado Senate race is all tied up with a week to go. Michael Bennet and Ken Buck are each getting support from 47% of voters in the state.
Bennet's hanging in there pretty well given his status as an unpopular incumbent. At 51%, a majority of voters in the state disapprove of the job he's done since being appointed last year to only 40% who approve of him. Usually you'd be dead in the water with those kinds of numbers as an incumbent but he lucked out when Republicans nominated an unappealing candidate of their own. 49% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Ken Buck to only 44% who see him favorably.
Buck's unpopularity is a major factor with the voters remaining undecided in the race. It's a group that by most measures should hand Buck a narrow victory in the end: 45% are Republicans while only 11% are Democrats. They're supporting Tom Tancredo 53-23 over John Hickenlooper in the Governor's race. 73% of them disapprove of the job Barack Obama's doing to only 7% who give him good marks. But they also have a very dim view of Buck at 59% seeing him unfavorably and only 13% in a positive light. Those voters have to decide between the competing impulses of disliking Democrats but also disliking Buck and that could be the ultimate determiner of who wins this contest.
Buck has led in most polls for most of the cycle, so this is very encouraging for Bennet. It also shows the value of a willingness to go negative in a campaign. Buck has been well-defined as an extremist by Bennet and Colorado Dems, whereas Hickenlooper has insisted on running a positive campaign. Colorado should know that Tancredo is so extreme that even Buck has had to try to distance himself, but since he's not been on a statewide ballot before. Hickenlooper needed to remind all of Colorado of just who Tancredo is.