September 23, 2010 06:11 PM UTC

Who and where Bennet lost

• 6 Comments
• by: H-man

Colorado is a state with one large metropolitan area, Denver, and one other liberal enclave, the people’s republic of Boulder, which are natural bases of support for Democrats.  Rural Colorado is a natural base for Colorado Republicans.  Which party wins in a statewide election in large part depends on where the line is drawn between those competing demographics.  In other words, the battle is over the suburbs.

The other axis upon which the race can be looked at is through the lens of party affiliation.  There are three large blocks of voters.  Republicans have about 35% of the voter registration, Dems about 33%, and each will likely vote for their respective nominated candidates.  The 30% Independent vote remains the key using that analysis

The poll that was released yesterday by CNN/Time http://politicalticker.blogs.c… provides numbers which fill in the blanks about how the Senate race is shaping up. On the geography gap CNN notes:

“Bennet’s problem is that his support disappears the further you get from Denver,” Holland says. “Bennet has a huge lead in Denver and Boulder, but the race is close in the Denver suburbs. Move further along the Front Range – the strip of fast-growing communities that strech out along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains – and Buck’s lead widens to 18 points. Buck also has a 20-point lead in the rest of the state.”

The takeaways from the poll as noted by the National Review are as follows:

Bennet takes 94 percent of his party’s support, while Buck holds 91 percent of Republicans. Independents are falling behind Buck, 50 to 36. This key demographic is sought by both parties, and currently makes up the largest voting bloc of registered voters in the state of Colorado.

Bennet has a commanding lead in the Denver/Boulder segment, 65 to 28, but Buck’s lead in the sought-after suburbs, 50 to 44, could prove insurmountable, as Buck holds generous leads along the Front Range corridor (54 to 36) and the rest of the state (55 to 35).

Bennet leads big in Denver/Boulder, Buck leads big in rural Colorado. The key, Buck leads in suburbs.  

Bennet has 94% of Dems. Buck has 91% of Republicans.  The key, Buck leads Independents 50%-36%.

The Washington Post yesterday had an interesting article which puts a face on the problem.  The article is titled “Loyalties shift in vote-rich suburbs” and profiles Commerce City, Colorado. http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

“I’m anxious,” said Jennifer Wallace, 35.

A lifelong independent, Wallace said she voted for Obama because she thought he could fix the economy. But recently, she said, her husband was laid off when a Chinese firm swallowed up the die-casting company where he worked.

“The unemployment was supposed to go down, and it’s not,” Wallace said. “You hear the housing market is coming back, but it’s not. Not here. We were the fastest-growing, the up-and-coming, and then it just stopped. We don’t even have our grocery store,yet.”

Blame drives the vote

Wallace said she knows she can’t blame it all on Obama. But she blames him enough that she says she will vote in November for Ryan Frazier, Perlumutter’s Republican opponent, and Ken Buck, the Republican hoping to unseat Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat.

The implications of the loss of the suburbs are particularly significant in CD-7:

Earlier this year few predicted Perlmutter would face competition from a Republican challenger, considering his comfortable margin of victory in 2008. But Frazier, a City Council member from the nearby suburb of Aurora, is a charismatic campaigner. Strategists in both parties say it could emerge as a sleeper race.

“People are starting to have a bit of buyer’s remorse,” Frazier said in an interview. He said Perlmutter, who supported most of the Democratic agenda, is out of step with the public.

Perlmutter acknowledges that his constituents may prove unfaithful. He hears it all the time as he walks suburban neighborhoods knocking on doors.

“It’s a testy year, and I need all the help I can get,” the congressman, in a T-shirt and jeans, told one voter as he made his rounds in Lakewood, an older suburb close to Denver.

The man told Perlmutter he probably could count on his vote.

“Could you put up a yard sign?”

That he would have to think about.

On the evening of November 2nd as the precincts report the Senate results and Buck is ahead 53% to 47% many reasons will be offered as to why Bennet lost.  If you want to know who he lost and where they are located I can help you with that now.  He lost the Independents in the suburbs.