Talk Elections

45/43. (http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_26719752/udall-gardner-colorado-senate-close-race-momentum-favors-gardner-poll) Indies tied at 40, gender gap narrowed.

Now Udall is winning the white vote and losing hispanics! Seriously, these Colorado polls have some big time questions that only election night will answer.

I did the math, at this rate Udall will win by 10 points.

Ballots drop tomorrow. And Gardner has the COmentum.

How is Garnder up 14 points among Hispanics?! There is something seriously wrong with this poll it also has Udall winning whites by 1 and still losing?

if the electorate is 79% white and assume 3rd parties get around 3%, then the GOP needs something like this for a 1% win:

White: 54-43 R (79%)
Hisp: 64-33 D    (14%)
AA: 87-10 D      (3%)
Other/Asian: 59-38 D (4%)

If Hispanics go 67-30 D then it's basically a dead heat, a complete tossup with around 48.5 each. If Udall got anywhere near the 75% Obama got in 2012 then it's over and he wins by around 2%. This is assuming the "other" category doesn't break further for Dems.

If whites only go 52-45 R then it's going to be a 2% or so Udall win even with the first figures I mentioned. Hispanics are tough to poll and were probably the reason Obama won Colorado by much more than expected and pulled out Florida despite polls saying otherwise. Not saying Udall will win, just that you can't discount it.

The reason most pollsters get the Hispanic numbers terribly wrong is because they don't survey Spanish-speakers (since they only conduct the poll in English). The difference between Spanish-speaking and English-speaking/English-fluent Hispanics is like day and night.

Guys! Guys! Don't worry: SurveyUSA's crosstabs never make sense but the result does. ;)

Another reason is the small sample size, something to bear in mind in all cross tabs trying to measure relatively small cohorts of voters, unless they oversample those cohorts. The error factor just ratchets up.

I don't understand why folks are trying to read so much into this when the bulk of the polling conclusively shows Gardner with a slight lead in Colorado and instead try to recalculate the polls to their own liking. Subsamples are rarely statistically significant.

The state of the race appears to be a slight lean to the Republican. It just is what it is. It can change between now and November, but as of now, the polling seems to be consistent here regardless of who is polling the state.

Gardners 1.8 point lead in RCP average is where the race should be looked at. Just considering that Obama beat the RCP by 4.5 and Bennett beat it by about the same in 2010 should keep some Rs nervous. Things like mail in voting and problems polling Hispanics mean that we really won't know for 21 more days and nor should we be surprised if Udall pulls it out (or if gardner wins by 3).

My rule of thumb for CO - if the Democrat is down by less than 3%, they'll probably win.

Udall will win.

If you object to the crosstabs on the two SurveyUSA polls (which, as others (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=199926.msg4326788#msg4326788) have pointed out, tend to be loopy due to small sample size), why not combine the results of the Denver Post poll that overestimated Gardner's performance among Hispanics with the results of the High Point poll that underestimated Hispanic vote share, which should mitigate both problems. Now what are your objections to the combined SurveyUSA poll with double the sample size showing Gardner up by 3?

If they are tied with indies, Udall will win. It's not that hard people.

Udall down by 2 eh? With everyone getting their ballots in tomorrow, most people will have voted within the week. Working in Udall"s favor is


1. Democrats have had a history of generally outperforming the polls by several points. Remember, Bennet was down by several points in 2010 but ended up winning by a couple points. Same thing happened with Romney/Obama in 2012 too with Obama doing a lot better than the polls suggested.

2. Mail-in ballots means everyone gets a ballot. This should benefit the Democrats. Why wouldn't it? It's guaranteed to increase turnout and expand the electorate

3. Udall has the better ground game (apparently)

Working in Gardner's favor is

1. He has the momentum (with ballots dropping tomorrow, not good for Udall)

2. Gardner's sharp turn to the left on abortion and immigration has really muddied the waters on Udall's strongest attacks.

3. Gardner probably "won" the debates (people will remember Mark Uterus if nothing else)

4. Udall overreached with abortion and it's clearly backfiring at the end here. His approval has really plummeted in the last 2 weeks,

Gonna be 2 points either way. I still say Iowa has a better chance of falling to the Rethuglicans before Colorado though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/upshot/two-polls-that-highlight-the-challenges-of-polling.html?abt=0002&abg=1

Doesn't exactly seem like these polling issues from 2010, 2012 have been corrected one bit.

New Poll: Colorado Senator by Survey USA on 2014-10-12 (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2014/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=8220141012019)

Summary: D: 43%, R: 45%, I: 5%, U: 7%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details (http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=91cf9070-1c78-403c-8480-f05d08f7d2db)