Talk Elections

48-48

http://bit.ly/10BLOSI

Here's the report. (http://www.lcv.org/assets/pdf/co-senate-poll-10-30-14.pdf)

It was for the LCV.

Well, no, it isn't really tied.  They have the gubernatorial race tied, too, which is more realistic.

What. The. Hell.

I'm sorry you can't handle the truth.

Ken Buck.

Gonna LOL so hard if Republicans get the football pulled away from then yet again in CO.

I think undecideds would lean Gardner, considering that he has so much higher favorables. We'll see though.

More than half of the electorate has already voted.  These are almost exit polls at this point.

I am frankly more encouraged by the gubernatorial numbers than I am alarmed by the tie in the Senate race.  Although, to be even more frank, I think both polls are probably off.

Tied at this stage -- it's down to GOTV. The Republicans have gotten most of their voters out already.

The only poll that maters.

Democrats are like yo-yos around here.  A good Democratic poll (and it is important to note that the only polling that has had Udall even close has been either YouGov, NBCNews, or various internals and left-leaning organizational polls) and Democrats act like they've won the World Series.  A good GOP poll and they're acting like Udall should go ahead and concede right now.

Please.  This has always been a competitive race, and because of mail-in ballots and a lot of confusion about what the electorate will look like, it will be a competitive race until Tuesday night.  That said, I'm absolutely comfortable saying that Gardner will win, and he'll likely do it by more than four points.  I am not as confident about the gubernatorial race, which feels like it really could go either way.

By the way, take a look at the early vote returns.  The GOP could very well exceed their 2010 margins this year.

No, we haven't.  I assure you of that.

Good god, the democratic reaction to this is absolutely pathetic. Yep, let's discount all the previous polls showing a 5 point gardner lead. Not sure if y'all notice this was done for LCV as well.

Sometimes it is so hard to get good objective info on this site because of the tinted glasses you guys wear!

Jesus Christ...

No, it is not tied at this stage. One poll says it, it has to be true!

Done for LCV. Not in RCP. Don't care

Is there any evidence that PPP's polls for LCV are biased?

PPP's other polls for the LCV look(ed) pretty believable.

This thread demonstrates why Atlas is so horrendous in the leadup to an election.

PPP has a superior history in polling Colorado than Quinnipiac, Suffolk or Rasmussen. 

Look at 2012:  PPP's last poll was Obama +6, he won by 5.4  Rassy and Quinnipiac's last polls had Romney's winning.  I'll take the guys who were off by .6 over the guys who were off by 8% and 6% respectively. 

Suffolk shows this as a 6 point lead for Gardner, Quinnipaic shows it as 7, Rasmussen shows it at 6, yet we are to believe only this one. It's unscientific to think that way.

It's not necessarily scientific to just purely average the public polls, particularly in a midterm election where the polling tends to be less reliable.  I'm not going to argue that Udall is favored, but this race should be seen as a complete tossup.

Excellent news!

It may show a tie but even PPP is showing Udall at 42/49 fav/unfav while Gardner is at 49/45. Staying very cautiously optimistic.

Too bad the actual electorate shows Republicans soaring to the mailboxes.

If it wasn't for the early vote numbers I'd feel better about this if I was rooting for Udall.  If in fact its a real close race I would think that the Dems would be closing the gap in the daily mail in ballots but they haven't so far very much, but of course indy's could be breaking to Udall in big amounts.
  The PPP poll only lists Udall and Gardner, not Shogun, and clearly he's getting votes as well.

No, it should not be seen as a tossup. Looking at the last ten polls, Gardner has lead in nine of them. Yes, there have been far bigger upsets than Udall winning here, but he is very clearly the underdog.

I'm guessing PPP and Quinnipiac's polls are outliers in opposite directions.  I think the race is at a 3 point Gardner lead or so.

Good post. I personally think Gardner is ahead by around 2.5.

I can live with that.

This post should have a giant (D) next to it. This is not a PPP Poll, it's a PPP poll for the League of Conservation Voters, a left-leaning group. Let's at least attempt to be intellectually honest here.

PPP will probably release their own Colorado poll at some point.

There is hope after all! :)

I think Udall wins by a 2010-ish margin or slightly less. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but that's my final prediction.

That's how I see it.  Something tells me that Udall and Braley both win, but unfortunately the Republicans still take the Senate with 51 seats.  I just trust the shifting demographics of Colorado, the high percentage of young voters and the real trend of polling underestimating Democrats for two straight cycles.  If you think about it, Democrats have quite a win streak in key statewide elections in Colorado going back to 2004.  My gut tells me that trend continues.

Denver Post/SUSA have Gardner up two today.

It's Ken Buck all over again. Yes, I said Buck.

But PPP/League of Conservation Voters (D) suggests it will end up R+1. Remember, remember, remember the Buck.

Yea, that stat about Gardner only leading early voters by 1 is garbage, and the actual results prove it.

Not saying I agree with Gardner+1 among early voters, but Colorado registered Republicans tend to vote D more than registered Democrats vote Republican, and/or Unaffiliated voters lean Democratic. 

Speaking of Ken Buck, I wonder if he will remain as big of a punching bag here once he's in Congress. Congressman Ken Buck ... lolz.

It looks like Udall will win this race relatively comfortably.

If a poll shows a tie in Colorado, the Democratic Party candidate is probably leading by 2-3 percentage points. It looks like Cory Gardner is the new Ken Buck.

This poll ruined my day.

So between this one and SUSA it looks like Udall might actually still have a (small) chance at surviving. That's cool.

Haha. It's a client poll. Moving on...

Finally, a Republican coming down to earth and embracing reality!

Actually this was a poll done for LCV, and they excluded third party candidates, so Gardner still has a chance.

That's the misfortune of whomever elected him.

Republicans predicting an Udall win... BUT KEN BUCK!

The third-party candidate got Bucked in this poll. Utterly and completely Bucked.

RCP is a rightwing publication, they've even admitted that themselves (look at Wikipedia and many other places for proof), and even in their polling database there are polls that are suspiciously not included as well as they're being really random with which polls they prefer to include in their polling average and which not. If they had been more consistent, it would have been easier to take them more seriously. On some races, like Kansas, they've continously tried to paint a more favorable picture for GOP than everyone else have already agreed upon is the situation on the ground there.

Udall isn't out of it. Take the R bias of CO polls into account and you have Udall +2. Unless more polls say no, Gardner's chances are now going down?

We need more polls in Colorado!

Yup - if the Dem is down by less than 3%, they'll probably win.

Remember guys, this was a poll done for LCV.

The entire Colorado senate race has devolved into Republicans going "muh not Ken Buck muh" and Democrats screeching "MUH +3 R = DEM WIN MUH!!"

Can't handle this anymore, I'll check back on this race on election day...

Take a breather. I don't appreciate being called a screecher.

lolz ... guilty.

Yeah, I actually talked to the one Democrat who works (or worked) for them a couple of years back. Poor guy.

The issue isn't that this was done for LCV, it's that LCV only chooses to release polls that are more favorable for Democrats. For all we know, they've had PPP poll CO a bunch of times and then just released the most favorable result (in fact, this is likely). Does this show Udall can still win? Of course. But is Gardner still favored? Of course.

Or they just released a few shock polls in NC and CO to increase their profile at a time when they can get some free advertising to line their coffers.

You never know the motivations used by an interest group in releasing what they release.  For some reason, LCV left out the third-party candidates, while PPP has included them in other Colorado polls, for example.

You can't treat this poll as anything other than PPP (D) due to the advocacy group they conducted the poll for.

The true PPP poll will be out sometime this weekend.

The PPP/LCV (D) poll had a 39 R, 38 D and 25 I/O turnout breakdown.

The Early Vote has 60% of the 2010 total vote tally in (1 million votes). The current breakdown is 41.6 R, 32.4D, 26 I/O.

I know PPP isn't likely pushing for Party ID. However, the early vote numbers are hard numbers. They are not even in the same ballpark as PPP/LCV (D).

In order to match the 39/38/25, the rest of the vote would have to break down as follows:

Same turnout as 2010 (1.8 million), you'd need a D+10 edge.
If you upped the turnout to 2.0 million, you'd need a D+8 edge.
If you upped the turnout to 2.3 million, you'd need a D+6 edge.
If you matched the Obama turnout of 2.6 million from 2012, D+4.5 edge.

Possible? Sure. But those are some haughty numbers to reach.

Party ID and party registration are different things.

Why do people never learn this ... need us NOT going into 2012 re-dux?

I'd generally agree with you, but not with 60% of the likely vote already in. This is almost like a half-exit poll at this point in time.

I find it hard to believe that partisans are going to lie to pollsters about their party affiliation after going out of their way to cast a ballot to the extent stated in this poll.

You basically would have me suspend belief here to say that 8-9 percentage points of Rs self-identify as Democrats for this sample to work.

If we were modeling against historic turnout, that would be one thing. But these are hard numbers for this particular voting cycle. To be a few points off on an exit poll is one thing. To be off by nearly 10 is not.

Keep in mind that at 60%, the EV numbers begin to become somewhat statistically significant in a larger poll subsample of 600 on their own merits.

By another measure, Democrats would have to push a sample of R+2 the rest of the way to get it within the R+6 they had for the Buck race. We'll see tomorrow, but these EV numbers have not budged much off of R+9 this week.

Does this poll include people who have already voted? 

Seriously. Republicans are making the same mistake they did going into 2012.

Were you not following politics in 2012?

Man, this thread is golden. One side is gonna use this thread as ammunition against the other once the dust clears. Can't wait for election night.

This surprises you?

When did I say it surprised me? :P

At this point in the race, the only way for Udall to win is more people vote the last minute on November 4th before 7pm, or some sort of fraud to pull him over the edge. The GOP isn't dumb enough to repeat the same mistake like in 2010.

Same mistake? Seriously?

This is not 2012. No one is trying to reskew a poll. I am just pointing out how these self-identified numbers are way off of the reality of what the Colorado electorate looks like right now.

Unlike 2012, we have statistically significant hard data in this race to back up those numbers.

The early voting samples simply do not compute with this poll's findings.

With likely 60% of the electorate all ready voting the numbers suggest an R+10 electorate. (Actually R+9.2, but R+10 due to rounding). It's remained in that range all week.

My point is that unless there is a serious Democrat wave over these last few days, this PPP/LCV (D) poll is an outlier. Democrats are not coming out to their 2010 early vote numbers in Colorado of R+6 right now. The enthusiasm is on the Republican side.

The red hats can gleefully look at this advocacy poll as evidence of a chance for Udall. However, your enthusiasm will wane once the real PPP poll comes out this weekend showing a Gardner lead.

Hopefully actual PPP polls this again to see whether LCV PPP is a shill firm or not. LCV PPP has had some wackier results than normal but looks generally credible, except for this result (which has gone against what most have thought for this race).

Gardner will win.

I am pretty sure that PPP is coming back to Colorado with their own poll, that includes the third-party candidates this weekend. The CO and NC results for LCV are not posted on their website.

My main issue with this whole thread is that the red hats on here are treating the poll as anything other than an advocacy poll for a D-leaning organization instead of the more accurate PPP/LCV (D).

All you are doing is unskewing this poll like Republicans did in 2012. Party registration and party ID are two different things and you would do well to learn that.

And before you respond, go check out the party ID from the 2010 exit polls in Colorado. If anything, this poll needs to be unskewed in favor of the Democrats! :P

I am not unskewing a damn thing. I did not supplant the R/D/I percentage to reengineer the poll and give the Gardner a nine-point edge. Nor have I ever accepted or adopted the Q poll with Gardner +7 as gospel.

I am pointing out that there is hard data suggesting the electorate right now is R+9. Yes, it can and may shrink between now and Election Day. However, it's very unlikely to expect a self-identified electorate eight points off of that number.

The sample size of Early Voters is becoming more and more statistically significant as a subgroup polling number. The number 67% of the 2010 total turnout.

Let's not forget that this is not a straight PPP poll. It's is an advocacy poll that does not exist on PPP's website done for the League of Conservation Voters, who is actively assisting the GOTV effort for the Udall campaign. As such the LCV has a vested interest. It is not a non-partisan poll. It's PPP/LCV (D) and should be treated as such.

That's merely my point.

Again, the hard data you cite is party registration. That has nothing to do with the whims and fancies of people at any given time, which is otherwise known as party ID. A person who is registered as a Republican my feel like a Republican one day and an independent the next. Someone registered independent may want to associate with the democrats one year, but not the next. Party ID is fairly fluid whereas registration is not. In 2010, a Republican wave year, Colorado voters said their party Id was 33-28 in favor of the Democrats. At the same time, I don't believe Democrats have ever had an advantage in party registration in Colorado in recent years.

I get your point about this being an advocacy poll and lo and behold PPP will be conducting another CO poll this weekend. You only diminish your greater point by conflating party registration and party ID.

So the 2010 Exit Poll included interviews of those that voted early, correct?

Yes, exit polls include those voters or else they wouldn't be valid.

RCP had a truly epic fail prediction from the day before the 2000 election.
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=41493.0

Maybe pot legalisation in CO was not such a good idea after all:

It seems Democratic voters are simply too stoned to send in their ballots in time.

According to the most recent count, the election is R+9 in early voting and exit polls in 2010 were D+5 with an actual total of R+6. It seems reasonable to believe if the actual in time voting is that D, it seems that at least Hickenlooper has chance.

That is party ID though. It is quite possible people will be more willing to identify with the Republicans this year than with buck on the ballot.

Gee a tie for an advocacy group turns into a R+3 when the non-partisan poll shows up.

Color me not shocked.

This drivel was PPP/LCV (D) all along.

Didn't I already mention that. Why did you have to bring this up?

In any case, you conflating party ID and registration is still idiotic.