Talk Elections

48-44 Obama

Project New America, formerly Project New West, is a private company that provides cutting edge tools to understand and communicate with a rapidly changing America. Through our unique model, PNA develops, conducts aggregates, and disseminates research, messaging and on-going strategic guidance with the nation’s leading progressive stakeholders. Since 2007, Project New America has conducted over 20 statewide surveys in Colorado.

Keating Research surveyed 601 Likely 2012 Colorado voters from May 21-24 on behalf of Project New America. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4.0%. Live interviews were conducted. Keating Research is a leading CO polling firm whose previous clients include Hickenlooper for Colorado and Michael Hancock for Denver Mayor.

http://www.projectnewamerica.com/PNACOPresidentialMemo5-29-12.pdf

Keating was Hickenloopers internal pollster in 2010 and got his double-digit victory right, while many other pollsters incl. Rasmussen, PPP, Marist and Magellan showed a close race:

http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/article_8e7685e8-ea2a-11df-b62d-001cc4c03286.html

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/GOVERNOR/2010/polls.php?fips=8

Hmm. Maybe Colorado will be The state that puts Romney over 270...

It'll be hard for him to overcome his 2-1 deficit with Independents.

Considering he's at 44% in this poll, which is the same percentage McCain got, that's not likely.

It seems like, finally, the national media and a few pollsters are coming around to that idea.  I've believed it from the start, but I live here.  It evidently takes longer for political trends to reach Washington than it does for cars, bikes, buses or planes.  Or really anything else.  The fact that Romney may do quite well in Colorado--despite real concerns in VA and OH--has been clear to me for a while.

Despite the fact that Romney and Obama are quite close nationally among independents, you really believe that unaffiliated voters in Colorado are really that in the tank for Obama?  I  can almost guarantee that Chicago doesn't think so, and is therefore probably not exactly cheered by this poll.

If Obama has a 2:1 advantage with independents and Romney is already this close, that should be good news for team Mitt. It means he has to sway a smaller percentage of the most swayable demographic there is. And I tend to believe that when election day comes and people are actually at the ballot box, people will have enough doubt in Obama that they'll vote against him.

Just for consideration. The CO GOP is just a little better organized than the NV GOP but not by much.

I've heard that the Nevada GOP has effectively been taken over by Ron Paul supporters, and that Romney is creating a shadow party to run his campaign there.  http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralstons-flash/2012/may/16/rnc-romney-campaigns-will-erect-new-organization-b/ 

In Colorado, the GOP is in probably the best shape it's been in for eight years.  It's hard for Democrats to win in Colorado when the GOP doesn't fissure itself into electoral tizzies like 2010 (or 2006).  Comparing the Colorado GOP with the Nevada GOP is apples and oranges.  In fact, the states aren't really similar, either, and it's why Romney may do much better in Colorado than he will in Nevada.

Yeah the state convention here was taken over by the Pauls and not just that, the whole caucus process was the mess. The counting, the voting, everything. It literally took 2 days to count the votes in Clark County. This whole mess also goes back to 2010 when the Angle campaign at one point had racked in 14 million dollars in funds and when she reported it 11 million of those were already thrown away. Also what was supposed to be a GOP year when state legislatures were going red all over the place here in NV they only gained 1 assembly seat and 1 state senate seat. Losing to a very weak Harry Reid with a less than 40% approval rate was the biggest embarrassment of them all.

I don't know about CO but if I had it understood right they were also getting a similar demographic change similar to NV though it was somewhat being negated by the large military presence around the Colorado Springs area. If they fizzle out again like in 2010 though they would have no shot at taking the state. If however you are right about the CO GOP being strong again perhaps we have a race there that will come down to who is better organized and who can turn out their supporters best.

I'm pretty sure that Obama has around 85% to 90% of Democrats in Colorado, because it's not a crap state like Oklahoma, Arkansas or West Virginia.

And Romney also has around 85-90% I guess.

Which means, if Obama leads by 20 among Independents, then this poll has to be made up of quite a lot more Republicans than Democrats to get an overall 4% Obama advantage.

Probably 5-10% more Republicans in that sample than Democrats.

Could someone call Bawlexus? ;)

We don't need Bawlexus for this, it's pretty obvious:

If the sample would look like the PPP sample a month ago, Obama would be up by double digits in this poll too.

No Democrat in Colorado has gotten less than 90% among Democrats since at least 2004.

Even John Kerry got more than 90%. Obama got 92%. Bennet got 94% in 2010, Hickenlooper got even 96%. PPP had Obama at 90% too a month ago.

With these numbers it's hard to imagine how Obama would lose the state right now.

Unless 10% more Republicans turn out in November ...

Obama trended away from the Republicans in 2004 as well as 2008. Romney can pick it up, but it's become increasingly difficult for Republicans to win it. I still say Obama has the advantage.

Active voter registration in Colorado has about a five-point GOP advantage, so, yes, the voter screen seems quite reasonable.

Which leads me to conclude that Obama can't win Colorado.  Does anybody really believe that he'll win unaffiliated voters by 27 points--in California, let alone Colorado?  In other words, if Obama needs a 27-point independent advantage to lead within the margin of error in Colorado, he can't win the state.

Two counties in Colorado will decide the state which way it'll sway, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties.  They are going to be nail bitters on election night.

Though, the GOP curently has like a 1% advantage in voter Registration and the "active" label  can probably be attributed to the Caucuses, right?

What were the 2010 exit polls like for Colorado? Would there be any reason why Democrats would do worse in Colorado than they did in 2010?

CO-Gov was D-33, R-27, and I-40, although indies voted 59% for Tancredo and Maes to 39% for Hickenlooper so we can assume many of them were disgruntled Rs.

The divisive Senate primary and non-competitive governor's race might've depressed Republican turnout, if one is making the case it'll be relatively higher in 2012 than 2010 (I'd personally doubt that, though).

CO had a crappy scandal against Ken Buck running for senate on his remarks with women which got rid of his lead before the final days of election. He was neck and neck with Michael Bennet.

Scott McInnis plagerized an article from a 20 year old Hasan Family Foundation which made him drop out of the race for the GOP.  He was ahead in the polls running as governor in 2010 before dropping out.  Also Tom Tancredo was running as a 3rd party candidate against Hickenlooper and Dan Maes with a couple months too late.  He didn't get enough recognition and votes.

If the sample was R+4 and we assume that both Obama and Romney got 90% among their own parties, then Obama lost about 5% of Democrats to Romney and Romney lost about 3% of Republicans to Obama, while Independents went 57-30 for Obama (just like the release said).

The problem with the whole "Colorado Democrats win in 2010" narrative is that it's false.  Republicans took every single statewide office with the exception of the Senate and gubernatorial races, where the Senate Democratic candidate got maybe 48% and the supposedly "popular" Denver Democratic mayor running for governor got 51%.  Not remarkable.  But it's even less remarkable when you consider the fact that there was essentially no credible Republican candidate, other than a really unpopular one who ran on the Constitution Party ticket.  And the "popular" Denver mayor only got 51%.

The GOP took two Congressional seats to pick up a majority for the delegation.  The GOP picked up the state House and one seat in the state Senate.  It was actually a very good year for Republicans in Colorado, but they totally blew easily winnable Senate and gubernatorial races (that may have had major downticket implications that keps other GOP candidates from winning their races).

If Marco Rubio (or even Jane Norton) would have been running for Senate, or certainly if a strong GOP gubernatorial candidate had emerged, the GOP would have swept Colorado quite easily in 2010.

It didn't happen, but there's a real chance that it will in 2012.  So much of the Democrats' success in the state is a result of GOP incompetence, and has very little to do with any supposed "ideological shift" among voters in Colorado.

Obama has a chance to win Colorado.  But it's a R-leaning state, perhaps like Virginia, that will be an enormous challenge for Obama.  I think that it certainly favors Romney.  But I still think that Obama can easily win Ohio and Virginia, and thus the whole election.  I'm not predicting the Romney landslide tha some conservatives think will happen.  I just happen to think that landslide or loss, Colorado goes red again.

Also, I believe that your registration is only activated by general election voting, because caucuses are run by the party, and not the state.  I don't think that SoS Gessler knows that I voted in the GOP caucuses here, so I think the "active" advantage for Republicans in Colorado has more to do with new registrations more than anything else.  The GOP is truly resurgent in Colorado, and it may take a while for people outside of the state to begin to really understand what has and is happening.

The GOP is doing good in Colorado? Nice to hear that.

Anyway, I think Obama will win CO. The state has a big Hispanic Population which the Republicans have made mad.

Can you give us some examples of the improvements in the state party organization that would cause such an improvement in registration and other changes?

I do agree that Democrats over emphasize the the results in 2010. For one, Colorado has a history of rejecting midterm landslides like 1994 when the reelected a Democratic Governor. Second of all, the chaos in the Governors race and the vote split depressed the Republican performance in the State Legislative races where the GOP could have done much better. Buck lost on the 1990's phone call recording. If Norton was Senate candidate and maybe Schaffer or Suthers was the Guernatorial nominee then things would have been very different.

I thought McGinnis lost in the Republican Primary to Maes 51-49% and didn't drop out of the race. i I remember Maes being a mess of a candidate after he won the primary. The National GOP(RGA) wouldn't throw any money his way.

Interesting fact about the 2008 Presidential Election in CO that differed from the 2004 Presidential Election there: McCain won more of the Hispanic Vote(38%)in CO than Bush did in 2004(30%.) The GOP lost CO on the white vote in 2008.

This solidifies my point of two counties in CO that decide the states sway.

http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_20775291/neighborhood-taps-into-nations-pulse (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_20775291/neighborhood-taps-into-nations-pulse)

2010 was a great year for Republicans nationwide due to depressed turnout of voters. Such happens in off-year elections when the electorate becomes richer, whiter, and more Protestant.  Add to that that the Hard Right lavished the political process with Orwellian propaganda emanating from every radio, billboard, and TV set on behalf of Tea Party pols, and Americans voted for a bunch of politicians who stand for the interests that usually prove the core support of fascist movements. Colorado Democrats were lucky. The Republican candidates for US Senate and the Governorship were from the lunatic fringe.


Much as elsewhere in America in 2010. Now the right-wingers face the acid test: have they done a good job by the standards of an electorate likely to be much more like that of 2008 than like that of 2010? To be sure, the Orwellian propaganda (basically, "For your well-being, make sure to vote for those who will degrade your life") will still be out -- but for the political dregs of the dreadful beverage that the Tea Party Cult and such types as Rove and Norquist have foisted upon us.

America on the whole is extremely unhappy with Congress even to the extent that the last poll for the approval rating of "Your Congressional Representative" was at 41%. On the average, political incumbents in Senatorial and Gubernatorial offices whose approval rating is  44% have a 50-50 chance of re-election, and the chance of re-election drops rapidly to near zero for those  whose ratings are below that. To be sure, those Representatives who are good cultural matches for their districts -- the ones who win 60% or more of the vote in their districts consistently -- may have stronger approvals and win. But the rest? A hint: the casino industry makes its money off people betting against the Law of Large Numbers.

Ratings for Republicans are lower than are those for Democrats. Such bodes ill for the current majority.     


If your Colorado Rockies had had Miguel Cabrera or Justin Verlander you might be celebrating a World's Championship.   


Colorado has been drifting D due to demographic change. The fast-growing Hispanic sector of the electorate distrusts the Republican Hard Right, and such is so with the Hispanic middle class that has no use for superstitions that the GOP promotes in education and for the 'take an axe to the schools' attitude. If poor white people are infamously anti-intellectual, poor Hispanics aren't. Some people know that the quality of schooling makes the difference between poverty and plenty for their kids. Really, that is the difference between Colorado and Arkansas.     


2010 is the high-water mark for the Tea Party Cult. Americans are onto it. I expect lots of freshman Republican Reps to go down to defeat in November. 

This election is far from sealed. The point is that President Obama doesn't have to defend his political back in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan as Gore and Kerry did. Such means that the President can operate with much the same strategy (Beat the Cheat) as in 2008 and win much the same way in 2012 as in 2008. Colorado is drifting D, and Mitt Romney will have a difficult time winning it. Likewise Virginia. Ohio will be a tough win for Romney because the Obama campaign will be hitting Romney on the bailout. Florida has a Republican Governor who is so unpopular that he must cheat to win.

The electoral college system now favors President Obama because he is winning by decisive (if smaller) margins than in the states in which he is losing badly. 

Hispanics can't help themselves for voting Obama a 2nd time when their unemployment jumps to 11%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-06-03/hispanic-voters-unemployment/55367198/1 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-06-03/hispanic-voters-unemployment/55367198/1)

It's better than what the Republicans would do to them.

I'm calling that BS.

As opposed to Republicans who want to racially profile them and pull them over and check their citizenship? Look at Gallup's numbers. Obama's approval rating among Hispanics is around 52-53% but he is getting about 65% of their votes. If the same thing happened with the overall electorate, Obama would have 58-59% of the vote with his 46% approval ratings. Hispanics are starting to vote in large numbers for the Democrats due to what the Republicans have done towards them or said about them. In 2004 about 40-44% of Hispanics voted for the Republicans. Which is probably the same as whites if you control for income. But the Republicans decided to go for the xenophobe vote. That's what they chose and shouldn't complain when Hispanics and other immigrants don't vote for them.

Obama has no record to run on to sway the Hispanic vote anymore.  He's trying to get them to vote for more smoke and mirrors by doing the same thing in his 2nd term and expect different results. Clearly, I don't buy that.  Would you rather profile someone regardless of color or have more illegal turnouts that vote Democrats?

Are we talking about illegal immigrants voting?  How often do you think that happens, percentage-wise?  Just curious.

5k non-citizens according to 2010 election for CO, and about 12k who were registered.  It may not be alot, but it's happening here.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/153079-gop-says-5000-non-citizens-voting-in-colorado-a-wake-up-call-for-states (http://thehill.com/homenews/house/153079-gop-says-5000-non-citizens-voting-in-colorado-a-wake-up-call-for-states)

Also, most likely areas concerned for voter fraud.
http://www.coloradopeakpolitics.com/diary/1064/finding-voter-fraud-8-suspect-counties-in-colorado (http://www.coloradopeakpolitics.com/diary/1064/finding-voter-fraud-8-suspect-counties-in-colorado)

What was the methodology for this study?  I can't find the white paper any place online.  This is something that is extensively prone to false positives, and I doubt Colorado Elections makes SSNs publically available...so, yeah, why are we confident about lacking false positives?

As for the second article, you really think that there's no reason those counties would be transient?  I understand their incomes average out fairly normally.  But, dude...Adams, Denver, Gilpin, Gunnison, Lake, Pitkin, San Miguel, Summit...you're not seeing two obvious categories that might be associated with voter transience but not necessarily income?  I'm not from Colorado, and it seems pretty intuitive to me...more intuitive than "ACORN!"

RockyIce, since you're giving us the point of view of the Hispanic electorate of America that's contrary to polls, could you tell us your background and familiarity with the views of Hispanics?

This is all reminiscent of "African Americans oppose SSM so they'll vote Republican."

Los Angeles Times poll (http://www.gqrr.com/articles/2749/7227_052112_usc_la_times_fq_Saturday.pdf) of registered voters has 41% of California Latinos admitting to being born in a different country.  These results are quite stable from poll to poll.  It's within the realm of possibility that they're just confused but then you'd have news stories every election about millions of illegal immigrants being turned away at the California polls.  Saying they must've come through legal channels just insults our intelligence.

Edit:  Also, a common Democratic "voter suppression" complaint is that Republicans supposedly make Spanish-language robocalls saying that illegal immigrants are subject to deportation if they vote.  This is, of course, an implicit admission that illegal immigrants do vote.  If such a thing actually is occuring, it also indicates that Republicans consider it a genuine concern and it isn't just something they made up.

I think this discussion of Hispanic voting trends very quickly turning into a discussion on illegal immigrants voting perfectly illustrates why Hispanic LEGAL citizens will be voting 2:1 for Obama and the Democrats even though only half approve of the job they have done. If illegals were voting in any significant numbers, California's electorate would be 35-40% Latino as opposed to the 20% it is.

Naturalized citizens can vote wormy. What the hell are you talking about?

I was going to say, if hordes of illegals/non citizens are voting, then the percentage of Hispanic citizens that vote must be down around maybe 15% or so. Maybe Hispanics think that only pussies vote - it is just not macho. :P

Combating illegal immigration and it's harmful negative side effects is not xenophobia

The number of Mexicans in the entire country (not just California) who became naturalized citizens in the period 2002-2010 is 889,929 according to the Department of Homeland Security (http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/YrBk11Na.shtm).  According to exit polls, Latinos were 22% of the California electorate in 2010, or about 2.2 million voters.  41% of them is over 900,000 votes.  It is not possible that illegal immigrants are not voting in large numbers in California.

Thing is, in some mid 20th century sweeps to gather up illegal Mexican immigrants and deport them back to Mexico, we ended up deporting people who actually were U.S. citizens.  So it's not at all unreasonable that if such robocalls were considered believable that some people legally here would be worried they would get sent to Mexico nonetheless because it has happened before.

By pulling over anyone who looks Hispanic? Why not protect the border instead of racially profiling people? Just doesn't motivate the racist base that well, does it now?

Why restrict it to those who were naturalized from 2002-2010? Why not look at everyone naturalized since 1970 or 1980? The vast majority of them would still be voting. Indeed they would be voting in much higher numbers than those who are recently naturalized.

Because I don't have that data available and the number of Mexicans naturalized in the state of California prior to 2002 is pretty negligable.  In any case the we can probably assume that the total number of Mexicans who came to *the entire US* during the largest 9 years for Mexican immigration in history is probably greater than Mexican immigration to California since 1980 or even 1970, especially when you consider many of that number are non-voters.

What is this based on? There has been Mexican immigration occurring into California since..well, forever. Immigration trends actually changed recently with more Mexicans heading to other states as opposed to just California. I see this first hand with Hispanics in Tennessee being much more "fresh of the boat" than a random Hispanic you meet in Southern California.

Also if we are talking about Hispanics as a whole, we shouldn't just restrict it to Mexicans. Even from 2002-2010, how many Hispanics as a whole were naturalized?

But, since facts and figures are key, if we assume the proportion of naturalized Mexicans naturalized in California in 2011 (39% of the total) holds true for previous years, and estimate that Mexican naturalizations since 1970 were at the same average rate as between 2002 and 2010, minus the outlier year of 2008 (almost certainly an overestimate), then there were about 1.37 million Mexicans naturalized in California from 1970 to 2010.  Assuming 20% died, moved out of California, are not registered voters, or are too young to vote (almost certainly an underestimate), and 60% of the rest turned out (almost certainly an overestimate), that gets us to 660,000 votes - 250,000 still unaccounted for.

First of all about 20% of Hispanics in California are not Mexican. So that 250,000 unaccounted for shrinks considerably to about 75,000 assuming the naturalization rates are the same for the rest. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf

Then we have to ask whether naturalization of Mexicans in California is only 39% of the total when averaged from 1970-2010. It is probably higher. Like I said, recently a greater proportion of Mexican immigration has headed to other places than California. Back in the 1980s and 1990s it was going in higher proportions to California. Also the 20% figure who have either moved or died is a little high. You have to remember that most immigrants are young and so the vast majority of immigrants from even the 1970s will still be alive. Also it's really the 1980s and 1990s where we saw a great increase in immigration. And averaged over 1970-2010, I really have to question whether there will be a net migration of immigrants from California to other states. Maybe native whites and blacks might be moving from California, I highly doubt that is the case with Hispanics or even Asians for that matter. And as for being too young to vote, if you come through legal channels, it can take up to 5-15 years to get naturalized. Many who came as kids would be eligible to vote, or at least within a few years of naturalization, in most cases. And immigration rates among the young are not that high iirc (double check me on this point though). Most immigrants tend to be from 20-40 years old. The young and definitely the old are underrepresented.

In addition to Sbane's explanation, which is a lot more compelling than "Maybe a massive number of illegal immigrants are registered to vote!", people lie about being registered to vote pretty often.  About 30% of Americans in a given election year are not registered to vote; only about 20% self-report that they aren't.  Even ignoring that some Americans probably incorrectly assume their registration has elapsed or gone inactive, that suggests that about 1-in-3 non-registered voters lie about it.  That social desirability effect may be lesser among non-citizens, since they have a clear excuse, or it may be greater.  No idea!  Point is, it's really not that difficult to imagine that discrepancy could exist for completely un-sinister reasons.

Also, voter registration databases are open record.  If there were massive numbers of illegal immigrant voters, do you not think this would have been noticed?  That's exactly why I'm interested in hearing more about this Colorado study.  It's the only legitimate way of looking into these things...but it's tough to do on a systemic basis, so I'd like to hear about the methodology.