A Rasmussen poll from a week ago showed Tom Tancredo moving within four points of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, putting the gubernatorial race within the margin of error. Yesterday, a new Magellan survey put the race into a dead heat. Tancredo now only trails by a single point, 44/43, as Republican nominee Dan Maes has almost entirely faded from the race:
Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies today released the results of an automated survey of 1,067 likely voters in the state of Colorado looking at the race for Governor. The findings show Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and former Congressman Tom Tancredo in a statistical tie. Among likely voters, Democrat John Hickenlooper has 44%, American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo has 43%, and embattled Republican candidate Dan Maes has 9% support. The generic “other candidate” has 2%, and only 2% responded as undecided.
Since our Colorado Governor survey on August 25th, support for Dan Maes has plummeted from 27% to 9%, a total of 18 points. It is clear the vast majority of former Dan Maes supporters are moving into the Tom Tancredo column. Since our August survey, support for Tom Tancredo has increased from 17% to 43%, a total of 27 points. John Hickenlooper has not been able to reach the crucial 50% threshold, and has in fact dropped 2 points since our August survey, from 46% to 44%. The following table looks at the ballot test by major voting subgroups.
The news looks especially bad for Hickenlooper among independent voters. Tancredo wins them by 12, 46/38, while also winning Republican votes 73/9. Tancredo takes a majority of men, 50/39, while Hickenlooper has a similar lead among women, 49/38.
The survey has an R+3 sample advantage, which Magellan says reflects the voting patterns of the last several election cycles, going back to 2002. The actual registration split in Colorado is almost dead even at 32.7% GOP, 32.9% Democrat, with 34.4% independent. This poll has the split 38/35/27 respectively, which means it’s underpolling independents in terms of registration. In the 2008 election, with Democrats energized by the Denver convention and Barackopolis, the CNN exit poll showed a turnout model of 30/31/39. Assuming that independents are energized both by anger at Democrats and by Tancredo’s run, Magellan may be missing a bigger base of support for the former Congressman than even this poll shows.
Given the recent release of Hickenlooper’s comments about “backward-thinking” rural voters in Colorado and surrounding states, it’s a shane Magellan didn’t include geographic data for its survey. Something tells me that the bitter clingers may have become a lot more likely to vote in ten days.
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