UN conspiracy theorist Dan Maes has his work cut out for him in making a dent in the gap between him and Dem John Hickenlooper. At least, so says Public Policy Polling. Note, they were pretty cautious before yesterday's primary in calling it for Bennet, who had a six-point lead in that poll, and won by nine, 54-46.
Not so much caution here:
Hickenlooper leads Maes 50-38. He's getting 88% of the Democratic vote while Maes receives only 74% of the Republican vote and beyond that he has a 52-29 advantage with independents.
When you throw Tom Tancredo into the mix as a third party candidate Hickenlooper's lead becomes even wider. He gets 48% to 23% for Tancredo and 22% for Maes. Maes would still lead Tancredo with Republicans 48-32 but support for Maes from independents would nearly evaporate with Hickenlooper getting 46%, Tancredo 32, and Maes only 13%....
There's not much of a path to victory for the GOP in this race right now.
That independent advantage (they actually use "unaffiliated" in Colorado) is huge. Nearly a third [pdf] of Colorado's voters are either unaffiliated (by far the largest chunk) or belong to a minor party. It's hard to reach any other conclusion than Tom Jensen has in the post for PPP. This seat is Hickenlooper's to lose.