CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 20, 2010 06:10 PM UTC
16 Comments
On one of the conservative blogs they saw the common denominator as Obama’s endorsement being the kiss of death.
Deep thinkers, those cons…….
(Bad) Polling, (inept) fundraising, (100% burn rate) spending, (non) message, (chaotic) organization, (damaging) earned media have nothing to do with anything! Bringing those things up just shows you are biased. Specter analogies are so much more applicable.
I think one thing that Tuesday did show was how little ability to influence local elections both parties have. I agree with the statement that they didn’t lose because of the endorsement of the president or other national figures, but it is an interesting note that it didn’t help much either.
Obama/DSCC/OFA support wasn’t enough in Penn or Arkansas, and Mitch McConnell’s handpicked choice got creamed by a tea party guy in Kentucky.
Whether there is resentment about the national parties jumping in or people just don’t care much about their view is hard to say without things like exit polling, focus groups, etc, but it seems like one of those two conclusions (or both to some extent) are valid.
The pundits and talking heads who try to draw inferences between what happens in an election in PA or some other state and apply that so called “message” somewhere else ignore one of the fundamentals of politics:
As for endorsements, they’re just as meaningless.
This race is not all of those others, in other places each with unique circumstances.
Like many of the recent previous races where people have tried to read in some all-encompassing narrative (VA and NJ Gov, MA-Sen, NY-23), each election is still its own race. There are no easy cookie-cutter predictions to be made.
While other race results should not be applied blindly Bennet has huge unfavorables for somebody who has barely had time to drink a cup of coffee in the Senate. That is where you see the anti DC sentiment. The numbers from the Rasmussen poll (PPP polls job performance for Bennet)for May for favorable/unfavorable are as follows:
Bennet very favorable 20% very unfavorable 27%
Buck very favorable 13% very unfavorable 12%
Norton very favorable 17% very unfavorable 21%
Romanoff very favorable 14% very unfavorable 14%
At the least, I would spin the Lincoln-Halter primary a bit differently. Lincoln has become a target, not because she is conservative, but because she has often flouted the Dem caucus and voted with the Republicans at critical points. I think Ben Nelson is the only other Dem in the Senate who can raise as much the hackles of party faithful.
The big story out of Washington, D.C., for the last two years has been that the Senate is the place where good ideas go to die. Lincoln has been a big part of that and she is now reaping the rewards.
Bennet, on the other hand, has consistently worked with other Dems, and Repubs, to move legislation forward. He might end up not getting the nomination, but he has been working to move things forward and that will serve him better than Lincoln’s efforts.
This article, like every other one by Coloradopols, about Romanoff and Bennet repeats it’s same old complaints about Romanoff. How about Romanoff winning the caucus? How about all his wins at the county assemblies? Seems like people respect and vote for him, despite his not having millions to spend on campaign ads and free water bottles.
Poor formula for winning the war.
Especially when you spent as much as you raised in the process.
The Dead Guvs are once again just posting someone else’s analysis – that of a Post columnist. It happens to agree with what they and a number of other people here on this site have been saying for a while (including some people who are undecided or are even cautious Romanoff supporters…).
Do you really expect this site to continue writing about the county assemblies and caucuses now weeks (months) old? And do you, unlike most posters here, really think that the caucus/assembly process is representative of the Democratic primary electorate?
The spinning – and beyond that the whining – is getting pretty overpowering. Romanoff needs to create a good news cycle; until then, this is what we’re stuck with.
It seems that most of the AR folks posting here are really very naive politically. Politics is a tough, fast-moving game. They are having a hard time keeping up, and an even harder time accepting that, much as all of us wish it weren’t so, there is no absolute purity to be had.
If Romanoff himself can’t generate some juice, some mojo, some power, then his lack of positive and ongoing press coverage is certainly not the fault of the press itself, of Sen. Bennet’s campaign, of Gov. Ritter or of Pres. Obama. The whining, as you say, just saps the Romanoff mojo even more and makes him look weaker by the day. And keeps his supporters and his campaign in a constant mode of complaint, denial and spin.
Which, I fear, is not a winning mode.
If you look back at the polling in both Arkansas and Pennsylvania two months before the May primary (back to Feb) you’ll see that the eventual narrative had not begun to reveal itself yet. In Pennsylvania Specter was leading (by more then Bennet is currently leading) and the question was when will Sestak makes his move. In Arkansas Halter was stalled, and the question was will Lincoln’s high negatives be enough to sink her. Tomorrow (State Assembly) will be the beginning of the next stage of this campaign.
Up until now, the two biggest arguments being made by the Bennet campaign have been 1) he is the incumbent and incumbents shouldn’t be defeated unless there is a specific reason to fire him and 2) he has so much money and washington/wall street connections that he is inevitable and our strongest candidate.
Both of those arguments are now clearly in the toilet. The next two months will be exciting and fun.
“Is Andrew Romanoff going to do a better job than I have been doing?” And on that point he’s been successful: Romanoff has been unable to articulate to the masses a clearly “better” future under his guidance.
Also, I think Romanoff is running an idealistic campaign in an era where cynicism has taken the average voter’s expectations down a notch to the “can get it done” level. Bennet has been showing some signs of, well, I’m not sure “success” is the word, but at least “ability”. This is rather sad, actually; we need a serious overhaul in the Senate, and I’m not sure you can get enough Senators to build the right bridges to get it done the old-fashioned way.
Romanoff IMHO needs to have a true break-out moment. He needs to come out of the State Assembly with a Barack Obama style speech, a strong vision that really resonates with voters. His best foreseeable press opportunity will be at the Assembly – he has to hit it out of the park to jump start his campaign.