Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., is looking better and better in his campaign to unseat incumbent Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., with the latest batch of polling data showing the Republican challenger ahead by seven points, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University survey released Wednesday.
The survey of 500 likely Colorado voters shows that 46 percent prefer Gardner, while only 39 percent say they’re going to go for Udall.
“The findings in the state, which President Obama carried in 2008 and 2012, signal an electorate that seems to be tipping toward the GOP. The poll … comes as voting centers opened this week in Colorado and thousands of the state’s distinctive mail-in ballots have been cast,” USA Today reported.
The poll also had good news for GOP members of the Centennial State’s House delegation, especially vulnerable Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo. “Those surveyed now support the Republican candidate for Congress in their district over the Democrat by 51%-39%, doubling the GOP’s advantage in September on the so-called generic congressional ballot and well outside the poll’s margin of error,” the report added.
The survey reveals that many voters in the Centennial State have turned on Udall for supposedly running an ugly and negative campaign.
“Among the small group of voters who already have cast their ballots, Gardner leads 50%-42%,” the report added. “While partisans have fallen in line — Udall is backed by 81% of Democrats and Gardner by 84% of Republicans — Gardner has pulled ahead among independents, 44%-31%. And he has erased the gender gap from September’s survey; women are now as likely to support him as men are.”
Gardner erasing the gender gap in voting is a bit remarkable given that Udall has made the so-called “war on women” the centerpiece of his campaign, relentlessly attacking the Republican congressman for supposedly opposing women’s “health issues.”
However, the tilt towards Gardner doesn’t necessarily mean that voters in the state want candidates who will only support GOP issues, the group behind the surveys notes.
“Coloradans have had it with party politics,” Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos said. “For weeks, both candidates’ ads have focused on messaging declaring that the other has or will vote his party line in Washington DC at the expense of constituents’ interests. The resulting impact is dramatic.”
Meanwhile, a separate survey by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling released this week found Gardner ahead of Udall 46 to 43 percent.
“Republicans have a chance for their first big statewide victories in Colorado in a decade because they’re running up the score with the groups they need to do well with — men, white voters and seniors,” Public Policy Polling President Dean Debnam said. “If they can continue that, it will offset their difficulties with women, Hispanics and young voters.”
