The state of Colorado has embarked on a far-reaching experiment this campaign season: Its 2014 election, featuring a high-profile contest between incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall and Republican challenger Rep. Cory Gardner, is being conducted exclusively with mail-in ballots. Every voter in the state has received a ballot; if a person wants to vote on Election Day, he or she will have to take that ballot to what is called a voter service center, present it to officials and then vote.
It’s expected most will opt to mail their ballots. And each day, as the ballots arrive, the Colorado secretary of state’s office announces how many have been received from Republicans, from Democrats and from unaffiliated voters.
As of Wednesday, state officials had received 379,250 ballots from Republicans, 294,648 from Democrats, and 222,043 from unaffiliated voters. The total number of votes received so far, about 900,000, is more than half the 1.77 million cast in Colorado’s 2010 Senate race.
In the high-turnout 2012 presidential election, there were 2.57 million votes cast. If, as expected, the Gardner-Udall race draws more voters than 2010 but fewer than 2012, the number of ballots received so far is a pretty substantial figure. And at the moment, they’re looking good for Gardner and his fellow Republicans.
The ballots received also appear to lend credence to the RealClearPolitics average of polls showing Gardner leading by 3.3 percent. Now, with just days to go, some Colorado Republicans strategists believe the mail-in totals, plus the polls, are contributing to an atmosphere of desperation among some of Udall’s supporters.
The latest evidence is a series of ads from NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. The ads, released in versions for TV, radio and the Internet, are set at some unspecified point in the future, after Gardner has “banned birth control.” For reasons that are not clear, condoms are still available in “Cory’s world,” but they are in scarce supply because other forms of birth control aren’t available.
The ads feature a young couple in bed, apparently ready to have sex, when they discover they’re out of condoms. The radio version of the ad begins with the sound of a door shutting. The man has been out searching for a condom to buy.
“They’re all out,” he says.
“Did you try the corner market?” the woman asks.
“Of course.”
“Grocery store?”
“Sold out.”
“Drug store?”
“C’mon.”
“So everyone’s sold out of condoms,” the woman says. “Hmmm. How did that happen?
“Cory Gardner banned birth control,” the man explains. “And now it’s all on us guys. And you can’t find a condom anywhere. And the pill was just a start — ”
At that point, the man goes off on a side track, complaining that Gardner wants to cut Pell Grants and doesn’t believe in global warming. “Cory denies science,” the man says.
“Don’t let Cory’s world become your world,” the announcer says. “Keep Cory Gardner out of the Senate — and out of your bedroom.”
The ad is not rooted in the actual events of the Colorado campaign. First, Gardner did come under attack from Democrats for once supporting so-called personhood measures, which opponents charged could lead to a ban of some forms of birth control. But Gardner has not only backed away from that support, he has also said he was wrong to have once favored the measure.
“I was wrong to have supported personhood because of the implications that it could have,” Gardner told me in an interview last weekend. “The people of Colorado have soundly defeated [personhood], overwhelmingly, time and time again. If there is any possibility that it could impact contraception, that’s not something that I support.”
In addition, Gardner now advocates making the birth control pill available over-the-counter, without a prescription. Instead of banning birth control, he supports making it more readily available — precisely the opposite of what the NARAL ad says.
Colorado Republican strategists have become used to such attacks — there have been previous ads claiming Gardner would ban some forms of birth control — but the new NARAL spots struck them as particularly over-the-top. “With 900,000 ballots cast and Republicans leading Democrats by 90,000 votes, it’s not surprising that they have gone from the nasty to the farcical,” one strategist in the state told me Wednesday. “What they’ve been doing has not been working, so now they’re trying to create late-night comedy.”
Of course, no one is laughing. There are still perhaps a million ballots out there. And despite the lead in the polls, despite the lead in ballots received, Republicans still must worry whether the Democratic attacks can still change some minds in the last few days of this very contentious election.
