Sen. Michael Bennet’s campaign is pushing back hard on a new Rasmussen poll released today showing GOP candidate Jane Norton with a significant lead. We’ve reprinted the Harstad poll memo after the jump, says Bennet campaign manager Craig Hughes in an accompanying release: “Rasmussen has long been identified as a partisan polling outfit whose survey results are consistently wrong, and always favor the Republican candidate. This race is a toss up right now.”
To: Interested Parties
From: Paul Harstad and Chris Keating, Harstad Strategic Research, Inc.
Date: January 15, 2010Re: Michael Bennet in Deadheat with Jane Norton in Colorado Senate Race
According to a recent, January 2010 survey of 605 voters in Colorado, Michael Bennet and Jane Norton are virtually tied in a campaign for U.S. Senate.
Overall, 43% of voters support Jane Norton, 40% of voters support Michael Bennet, and 17% are undecided. The pivotal independent bloc of Unaffiliated voters currently prefers Bennet over Norton by a 10 point margin — 42% to 32%.
Currently, 29% of voters feel favorably toward Michael Bennet while 27% feel unfavorably. And 23% of Coloradans feel favorably toward Jane Norton while 17% feel unfavorably.The sample in this internal survey represents a conservative look since it includes a 5% Republican advantage (39% registered Republicans, 34% registered Democrats, 27% registered unaffiliated) – despite the fact that the most recent statewide registration tallies actually show a slight Democratic edge in Colorado.
Of the 300,000 increase in registered voters over the last two years in Colorado, a 57% majority are Democrats, just 12% are Republicans, and 28% are Unaffiliated.
The survey was conducted by Harstad Strategic Research among a cross-section of 605 likely voters in Colorado. The overall results are subject to a statistical margin-of-error of plus-or-minus 4%.
Based in Colorado, Harstad Research has been the successful pollster for the Senate campaigns of Ken Salazar and Mark Udall, has polled for President Obama from 2002 to the present, and polled for the Obama campaign in 22 primary and general states including the pivotal Iowa presidential caucuses.
Harstad Research has a remarkable record of accuracy in recent elections in Colorado and elsewhere. In 2004, it’s last Senate poll showed Ken Salazar winning by 4.4% while he ended up winning by 4.9%. In 2008, Harstad’s final Colorado poll got Mark Udall’s winning margin within 0.3% of the final spread and Barack Obama’s winning margin within 0.1% of the final spread.
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And I mean you, JO!
I especially like the paragraph about how accurate Harstad Research is, particularly compared to Rasmussen.
n/t
Just Jane Norton talking and banning freedom of speech are probably enough.
But he’s definitely got a fight in front of him.
With plenty of time to spend with her family.
LB, please save this posting for later 😉
Janenortonownedbylobbyistslikeherbrotherinlawcharlieblack-saysanygoddamncrazythingteabaggerswanttohearpetrifiedofvideocameras-prozacandstrifezzzzzzzzzz
You’re back!
It’s only witty and funny when I do it.
How brutal is it going to be for you when she wins? She’s up by 12 in the latest poll, and we’re looking at a major implosion if Bennet votes for Obamacare.
If Kennedy’s seat is in play in blueblueblue Mass., don’t you think Bennet’s sweating a little right now?
You’re going to get every teabagger and Rush Limbaugh proselyte to max out in every Senate race in the country? Apples and oranges, but intellectual fraudulence is nothing new to you.
I know you’ve got a GOP poll, I’ll match it with Harstad showing the race inside the margin of error with better methodology.
Speaking of which, do you agree with Norton that we should abolish the Department of Education and the federal government should have “no role” in health care? Do you believe Obama cares more about “terrorist rights” than your safety?
Also, since we’ve bargained away everything you used to call “Obamacare,” why do you still call the current bill that? Is it because you are a hack who has to disparage the bill no matter what for pure politics – like all Republicans?
1. Yes, for now. We need to scrap the whole system and outlaw the union, and start a new union that is actually interested more in kids’ success than their fucking union.
2. The Government should have a very limited role in health care. I’d like to see available government insurance and subsidies for people that can’t get health insurance or can’t afford it. But I don’t believe in that option being a trojan horse to eliminate private insurance, which is exactly what the public option in the House bill was. I also don’t believe the government can mandate the purchase of health insurance.
No. But I think that’s the result of his desire to appear to be fair, and some terrible decisions regarding civilian vs. military trials.
How’s that for straight answers to your questions?
BTW, I call it Obamacare not as a pejorative, but just for identification. It’s whatever comes out of Congress at this time.
Here’s the real test: can you respond without insulting me?
1. I think you are more interested in bashing unions than in rationally comprehending what they do. Having said that Obama’s Education Department is making reforms that the union may not like but are steps in the right direction. “Abolishing” Ed is silly Teabagger ranting. And btw, you’re not confusing the Department of Ed with the NEA, are you?
2. Cool. Norton answered “yes” when asked if the government should have NO ROLE. How do you reconcile that with what you say you want, however limited? Again, Norton is spewing nonsense.
3. So you do not agree with Norton? Why do you think she would say something so incendiary then?
And to conclude:
Is laughable but most revealing, I’m going to stop before I insult you ’cause that’s basically the next thing to do.
Hey – you asked 🙂
Did you get JeffcoBlue’s approval, though? Let’s get something and stick with it.
Um, David – I know you couldn’t possibly have had a straight face when you typed that.
about Romanoff-Norton?
Even if it was Romanoff 80, Norton 20 – he still needs to win the primary first. And that just isn’t happening.
it wasn’t published.
I’d laugh off the Harstad numbers as desperation in a losing situation (Rasmussen is only about 3-4 points GOP leaning … not like they’re off the reservation completely). But since Norton’s fundraising was miserable this quarter ($500k is a good take for a HOUSE race, not a Senate, and she’s still got a primary to fund with one self-funder in it) and she’s only got three quarters to go, she’s still a big underdog. It seems as though the energy in the GOP is not in her corner, and that’s deadly. Bennet is going to be able to outspend her 5:1 at this pace, more if as expected Romanoff drops out or he self-funds (which he can). By the usual metrics that’s worth 10 points at least.
Money talks, especially in statewide races.
that the 4th quarter of the year before the election is traditionally the biggest quarter of them all. You aren’t doing ANYTHING except raising bucks.
I think they’re a lot of GOP institutional supporters wondering if one of the others might just be a better candidate right now …
The tea-partiers don’t trust her and are holding back. The big money is worried she will go the tea party route and is holding back. Sometimes standing for nothing is deadly in politics.
with you? I can’t remember for the life of me. And has Andrew done one? I thought he did? I know he agreed to. And McInnis is still a no response?
It went from we will do this ASAP (Oct) to we will do this soon (Nov) to we’ll get back to you (Dec/Jan). I think as they realized the tea partiers could kill her nomination they didn’t know how to position her and decided to go quiet.
Romanoff did do a very nice interview with me. McInnis is still a “no thanks.”
This is additional information about Rasmussen sent out with the poll Pols posted:
Pols, can you kindly delete my broken attempts above? It appears soapblox doesn’t like special characters, in this case an apostrophe.
Most voters aren’t focussed yet and don’t know either of the candidates, so it makes sense the numbers would break fairly evenly.
I told you all last March and I keep harping on it. We have one party control of local radio here. KHOW and KOA have tremendous range throughout Colorado. Eighty hours a week they have LOCAL hosts who attack the dems, relentlessly. The republicans do NOT pay one red cent for all that free air time.
WTF do you all think that advertising doesn’t make a difference??? I am getting calls from dems begging for money so that they can BUY time on the airwaves.