CO-Quinnipiac: Clinton leads Cruz but loses to Christie; Biden in bad shape

[Mr. Morden]

Quinnipiac poll of Colorado:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/colorado/release-detail?ReleaseID=1942

Clinton 45%
Cruz 42%

Cruz 45%
Biden 39%

Christie 43%
Clinton 42%

Christie 50%
Biden 33%

[Mr. Morden]

We've now had three polls of Colorado this year (one by PPP and two by Quinnipiac).  All show Clinton doing worse there than in the other states that were 2012 swing states.  Whether that'll hold up into 2016 is of course an open question, but it appears to be "real" for now, and not just a bad sample.

[Mr. Morden]

fav/unfav %s:

Christie 50/22% for +28%
Cruz 26/16% for +10%
Clinton 51/44% for +7%
Biden 40/50% for -10%

Few voters actually know who Cruz is, but the poll shows him with higher name recognition among Republicans than Democrats, which helps explain his positive favorability.  Cruz is also +15 among Hispanics, which is higher than Christie.  That presumably helps explain why he does comparatively well in the general election matchups.  Some Hispanic voters may not know who he is, but give him a positive rating because of his last name.

Also, the gender gap in this poll is enormous.  Christie vs. Clinton:
men: Christie +17
women: Clinton +14

A 31 point gender gap.  And the Cruz-Clinton gender gap is 33 points!

[Mr. Morden]

I doubt that Clinton is struggling this much with Colorado. She certainly wouldn't be ahead of Cruz by only 3%.

Few voters know who Cruz is.  I think he benefits here from being a Republican with a Hispanic last name.

Cruz would most definitely not do that well, he's a poor fit for the state. Quinnipiac isn't always that great with polling, they can be off in either direction from time to time.

The Cruz numbers really don't mean much, because his name recognition is so poor.  The Christie vs. Biden and Clinton numbers aren't much out of line with the previous polls.  And Quinnipiac did do slightly better than PPP in Nate Silver's 2012 ratings.

[Mr. Morden]

I just looked up the two previous Colorado polls this year.  The other Quinnipiac poll had Christie leading Clinton by 3, and the PPP didn't include Christie at all, but had Clinton leading Rubio by 4, when she was leading him nationally by about 9 or 10.

Overall, for Christie vs. Clinton, a Christie lead of 1 would mean a 6 point swing towards the GOP here, compared to 2012.  It's not really that big a swing, compared to some of the swings *towards* Clinton we're seeing in the polls of Southern states.  Since Clinton's current national polling lead on Christie is comparable to Obama's victory margin over Romney in '12, the swings we're seeing towards the Dems in the South would have to be offset by GOP swings elsewhere for everything to even out.  It really shouldn't be that surprising.

Of course, this is not to say that the polls will remain like this for the next three years.  It's just a description of the polling *right now*.....which, yes, includes Christie doing better in Colorado than in several Southern states, strange as that may seem, when you compare to the 2008 and 2012 maps.