The preference poll results from last night are now in, and although this is only round one in a long process that still must wind through counties and state assemblies, here's how we see the results:
On the Democrats' side, we can't really declare either Sen. Michael Bennet or Andrew Romanoff to be a "Winner" or a "Loser" from last night. Romanoff didn't beat Bennet by a significant margin, so little has changed in this race in the last 24 hours. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot to discuss on the Republican side, so let's get to it...
WINNERS
Ken Buck As we wrote yesterday, Buck's campaign for the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate race obviously had a good feel for the likely results given that his manager was actually raising expectations rather than lowering them. Buck did just slightly better than Jane Norton (37.86% to 37.74%), but this is still a huge victory for the Weld County District Attorney because it shattered the idea of Norton as a clear frontrunner.
Norton spent a lot of money on TV ads leading up to the caucus, and she still couldn't even get to 40%. She's now going to have to continue to spend money through the state assembly in order to hold on to her delegates and stem Buck's momentum. Buck still has to show he can raise money after a pathetic Q4 that saw him raise just $40k, but the momentum is now on his side.
Dan Maes Lost in the discussion over the U.S. Senate race was the fact that the unknown, poorly-funded Maes managed to pull nearly 40% in a preference poll for Governor. This is more an indictment of frontrunner Scott McInnis than a sign of strength for Maes, but nevertheless this is a big victory for a guy that nobody had even heard of a year ago.
LOSERS
Scott McInnis If the results from last night's preference polling holds through the state assembly, McInnis is going to have to really campaign to make sure he makes it out of a gubernatorial primary. Challenger Dan Maes has been a thorn in his side for a few months, but most people (including us) wouldn't have expected Maes to actually be on the ballot in August. Maes likely couldn't have afforded to petition on to the ballot, but now it looks like he might make it on through the caucus process, which is a massive blow to McInnis' hopes of beating Democrat John Hickenlooper in November. McInnis will now have to expend real time and resources in the primary -- neither of which he can afford to use up before a general election battle with Hick.
Jane Norton We covered this in our discussion of Ken Buck above. The image of Norton as GOP frontrunner has been smashed, and she's going to have to really ratchet up the fundraising (and the spending) in order to make sure she gets through the primary.
Tom Wiens By picking up just 16% of the votes, Wiens came in a distant third to Buck and Norton in the GOP Senate polls and needs to go the petition route to make sure he makes it onto the ballot. Given that most of Wiens' warchest comes from his own bank account, he's got a decision to make. Does he spend the money to gather the necessary petition signatures and continue his campaign? Or does he take the caucus results as a sign that he might not have the support to win a primary? We don't think Wiens is out of the running by any means -- not with Norton's poor performance and Buck's meager finances -- but last night was definitely a "fork in the road" moment for him.
As Politico reports today, the spin is in full effect on the eve of tonight's caucuses. Read some of the quotes after the jump, including our take on who really has the most at stake in the race for U.S. Senate...including a potential glimpse into the results.
And starting again out in left field...Jane Norrrr-tonnnn.
We've expressed amazement in this space before at Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton's apparent message strategy we dubbed "Out of Left Field" Norton. And we've said before that it sucks to be Norton's spokesperson. You never know what Norton is going to say, or when she might say it, and more often than not, she's not saying something good.
Well, it's happened again. A new video is now online in which Norton tells a Republican Party forum in Colorado Springs that "with regard to Social Security, it has turned into a ponzi scheme."
Why on earth would Norton say this? There are some 600,000 Coloradans on Social Security, with hundreds of thousands more hoping to be able to cash in sometime soon. Norton might even have a valid point in here somewhere about Social Security needing an overhaul, but you don't compare it to a ponzi scheme!
By talking so critically about Social Security, Norton gives the impression to a lot of voters (which will no doubt be clarified in an attack ad down the line) that she does not support Social Security. And that's not a good idea. We all know that Senior Citizens might forget to put in their teeth, but they never forget to vote; and you absolutely don't want to come across as unsympathetic to one of their primary concerns.
Norton's statement would be bad enough if it were just a one-time thing, but if you are a Republican who views her as your best shot at winning back a Senate seat, you've got to be concerned about Norton's complete lack of message discipline and apparent willingness to say anything, anytime. In the last two months alone, Norton has served up a half-dozen or so giant meatballs for her opponents -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to use against her later. This is not what you would expect to see from the supposed GOP "frontrunner" in a U.S. Senate race.
We, along with the Denver Post and various other amused parties, have talked quite a bit about GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton's call to 'abolish' the federal Department of Education. The Post's examination of the issue last December found that Norton was pretty distantly behind the times with this Reagan-era canned prescription for "reform," and it's not a talking point we expect to see repeated much once her Tea Party-centric primary is over.
Somebody really ought to get that message to gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis though, and check in on what McInnis is actually talking about--state versus federal departments for one thing, since there's a difference. Here he is speaking extemporaneously at a Tea Party/912 Movement candidate forum last month:
A transcript, in case you found it tough to hear:
Katie Kafer: Are there any Colorado agencies, boards or commissions you would eliminate and why?
Scott McInnis: You could look at the Department of Education. You could also merge the Division or Wildlife, perhaps with -- not Wildlife -- but the Department of Agriculture with the Department of Natural Resources and some other mergers.
So, it's one thing to talk idly about eliminating the federal Department of Education, with its arguably more remote and indirect role. It's quite another thing to talk about eliminating the state Department of Education, which is much more directly involved with the day-to-day administration of Colorado schools, teacher accreditation, standards and testing, and other core functions. Suggesting we eliminate the state Department of Ed is...well, it's totally ridiculous and unworkable, and crazier by several orders of magnitude than what Norton was lampooned for suggesting.
We'll say it again: this is not some cutesy budget cutting gimmick; this is like suggesting that we eliminate the Colorado Department of Transportation, which as we all (should) know, would mean that roads would not be fixed, maintained or plowed. It's completely unserious on its face.
In fact, it's far enough over the top that it makes us wonder if he didn't understand the question--but the moderator clearly did refer to "Colorado agencies," and the other government departments McInnis mentioned are definitely state-based. Therefore, we have no choice but to conclude that eliminating the Colorado Department of Education really is what he said he would do as Governor.
We have no doubt that sweeping statements about 'eliminating' evil government departments at every level go over well at a Tea Party campaign forum, after all the percentage of homeschoolers in that room almost certainly was well above mean--but this feels a lot like one of those moments they looked back on with Bob Beauprez after his seventeen-point loss in 2006, and began to realize when it was that voters stopped taking him seriously.
Colorado has had it's share of non-media savvy candidates and campaigns over the years, with Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton's campaign leading the way in 2010 where screwing up the earned media side is concerned. But for all the mistakes of candidates like Norton and "Master of the Terrible Press" Ali Hasan, nobody has quite gotten bad media relations down to a science like California Republican Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign. As "The Fix" explains:
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has faced a steady drumbeat of criticism from her Republican primary opponent -- state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner -- for ducking debates and non-choreographed media appearances in her run for the California governorship.
Yesterday at an event in Oakland, Whitman handed Poizner considerable fodder to make that case -- refusing to take questions and then watching as reporters were moved out of the room and some sort of blockade was put in place so the cameras couldn't shoot film of Whitman standing around. (You must watch the video [below]; it is b-r-u-t-a-l.)
Of the back and forth, San Fransciso Chronicle veteran political reporter Carla Marinucci wrote:
"Veteran reporters, who included KTVU's Randy Shandobil and KPIX's Hank Plante, were among the crowd that wasn't amused. Question: is Whitman a candidate for governor, or a museum piece to be 'watched' by reporters?"
Ouch.
As "The Fix" says, you've got to watch the video, which is embedded after the jump. It's just...plain...weird. Why (why?) would you intentionally antagonize the media like this? Can you guess which state's media is now going to go out of its way to investigate every little tip they receive about Whitman?
It's time to cast those votes on the caucus process. Click below to vote, and remember: As always, we want to know your best educated guess.
Since the caucus process will last for a few months, predicting a winner will be tough to do. How much does it hurt Jane Norton if she doesn't do well at the caucus? Does a poor performance basically end Ken Buck's campaign? What about Tom Wiens?
So vote below, and then offer your comments on what the caucus process means for the candidates. We'll offer our opinion later in the week.
As we've said over and over, head-to-head polling (of general election voters) matching up candidates from different parties is virtually meaningless at this point in the race. Probably 95% of voters aren't paying any attention whatsoever right now, so polling today is basically asking people their opinions about two people they don't know anything about. Matchup numbers today will look completely different in three months once the candidates start advertising heavily -- that's when these numbers will tell us something meaningful.
For example, this poll shows that Republican Ken Buck would beat both Democrats Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff in a head-to-head race. But as you'll see below, basically only 22% of voters even know anything about Buck. What this really means is that "unknown Republican" beats "unknown Democrat," but given the recent anti-incumbent trends, we already knew that.
The only numbers worth looking at this early in a race, which Rasmussen acknowledges, are those that show "very favorable" and "very unfavorable" ratings; in order to have a "very" favorable or unfavorable opinion of someone, you probably know something about them. With that in mind, here are the "very" favorable/unfavorable numbers:
VERY FAVORABLE Jane Norton: 21%
Andrew Romanoff: 17%
Michael Bennet: 16%
Ken Buck: 12%
Tom Wiens: 11%
VERY UN-FAVORABLE Ken Buck: 10%
Tom Wiens: 11%
Andrew Romanoff: 19%
Jane Norton: 21%
Michael Bennet: 26%
What does this mean? It looks like a pretty clean slate all around. Nobody's "very unfavorables" are too bad (and nobody has great favorables, either) which says that there isn't a huge hurdle for any candidate to overcome. Back in 2005, then-Rep. Bob Beauprez had very high unfavorable ratings more than a year before the election for governor, which portended an uphill climb for Beauprez; for obvious reasons, it's hard to get people to change a negative opinion about you.
Without seeing detailed results, it's hard to know how much of Bennet's unfavorables are because of him personally or because of a negative attitude towards incumbents generally. The most interesting number is Norton's 21% "very unfavorable" rating; do people dislike Jane Norton, or do they dislike some other Norton? There must be some "Norton confusion" here, because when you add up both numbers, she is as well known as the incumbent Sen. Bennet. Elsewhere, we don't see anything noteworthy about Romanoff's numbers, good or bad, and Wiens and Buck remain a mystery to voters.
Interesting article in Politico yesterday, where Republican Senate candidate Tom Wiens makes the case that the only reason Jane Norton has any name ID is because there are no fewer than five other Colorado Nortons who are prominent politicos:
Besides the Senate candidate, there's Jane Norton's husband, Tom, a former U.S. attorney; former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who served as state attorney general; former state Senate President Tom Norton; and University of Northern Colorado President Kay Norton.
They're not all related, but that doesn't mean the many Nortons don't benefit from one another's prominence.
"In Colorado, there's an unbelievable amount of people involved in GOP politics named Norton," Wiens, a former state senator, told POLITICO in an interview. "I would imagine that when they're asked, I think a lot of people would say they'd probably vote for a Norton, no matter who the Norton is."
We agree with Wiens argument that Norton's name ID isn't entirely her own, and it's a subject we've brought up before in discussing her candidacy. We'd be more interested to know, however, if the last name "Norton" is actually more of a hindrance than a help.
For example, Gale Norton, the former Colorado Attorney General and later Interior Secretary being investigated for making side deals with oil companies, is probably not the Norton that Jane's campaign would want voters to recall. We've no doubt that more than one voter thinks Jane is really Gale, but that's probably not a good thing. Or is it, with the thought being that Gale is still well-known and her legal troubles are not?
You can say one thing for Republican Jane Norton: She certainly doesn't shy away from answering questions.
Ever since Norton entered the race for U.S. Senate, she has made her opinion known on all sorts of issues, which has included some answers that are, well, odd.
According to The Fort Morgan Times, Norton was at it again recently while talking with voters at a coffee shop:
Norton said a national sales tax is an option, along with a flat tax, but it would mean overturning the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and she does not trust what Congress might do in that circumstance.
Perhaps a simplified flat tax with exemptions only for mortgages and charity would work, Norton said.
A flat tax? Really? When was the last time you heard a serious candidate for something like U.S. Senate talk about a "flat tax?"
Republicans have a tough problem in Colorado. They have to try to placate the Tea Party and other far-right interests in order to make it through a primary, while also trying to remain somewhat moderate in order to win a general election. Norton faces that same problem, but she's handling it in a very strange way: By just sort of saying whatever she feels like saying.
Whether it's abolishing the Department of Education, saying the Federal government "has no role in health care," or almost casually giving approval to a "flat tax" when someone else brings it up, Norton is creating a quotation trail that makes her look like she's all over the place on issues. At the rate she's going, her opponents will be able to create some great ads showing Norton saying out-of-left-field things at every turn.
We haven't seen anything like this in quite a while in Colorado. You really never know what Norton is going to say next, and we're starting to wonder if she even really knows what she's saying. It's almost as if she just vomits out an opinion on whatever pops into her head.
And the way this is all happening is fascinating to watch; every week or so, Norton shows up in another small town in Colorado and inevitably offers up some completely random opinion on something. This is the kind of thing that you expect no-hope candidates like Cleve Tidwell to do, but not what you expect from the person generally considered to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. It really is...weird.
We're curious, and frankly, a little excited at the prospect of seeing Norton in a live debate. If she can't keep track of what she's saying now, a debate is going to make her head explode (or at least her campaign manager's head).
When fundraising numbers for Colorado's U.S. Senate candidates were all announced earlier this week, it continued a rabid conversation about what individual reporting numbers mean for each campaign. Less discussed, but no less important, is whether or not each campaign is raising enough money just to keep the lights on.
As we've said before, fundraising reports are normally a reliable indicator of potential electoral success, because most large donors (people that give at least $500 to a candidate) write checks to the candidate that they believe is most likely to win.
But the other reason that fundraising is so important is for very fundamental purposes: You need a lot of money to both support a statewide campaign and to get your mug on television. It's no secret that the candidate who does best on TV is often the candidate who ends up winning the election, so an effective campaign has to be able to pay for its day-to-day operations while also saving as much as possible (70-80% is a general rule of thumb) for television.
Obviously, a U.S. Senate race is a costly affair. In 2008, Democrat Mark Udall outspent Republican Bob Schaffer $11.7 million to $7.4 million. Now that the fundraising reports for the 2010 batch of Senate candidates are available, we thought it would make sense to look at just how much money they are going to need just to fund their campaign. The answers tell us a lot about which candidates are in a position to win, and which are just treading water right now.
As The Denver Post reports today, Colorado's candidates for U.S. Senate will report vastly different results from the Q4 fundraising period:
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet raised more than $1.1 million last quarter, nearly 3 1/2 times more than his Democratic opponent, Andrew Romanoff.
On the Republican side for the U.S. Senate seat, Jane Norton collected more than $550,000.
The campaign for Tom Wiens, the newest Republican candidate for the Senate, said it raised more than $725,000 but declined to give any details or say how much of the money came from the candidate...
...On the Republican side, Norton's donations last quarter were nearly 14 times more than those of Ken Buck, whose campaign netted about $40,000, according to federal filings...
...Wiens' campaign did not elaborate on the $725,000 besides saying it had about $550,000 on hand. Detailed contribution records for the period are not yet available.
"Those are the only two figures I have," said campaign spokesman John Ransom.
Walt Klein, adviser to Buck's campaign, said the low totals were the result of the splash Norton made when she entered the race last fall.
"It was a disappointment but not one that was unexpected," Klein said. The campaign has more than $276,000 on hand.
Wiens has said before that he is prepared to put $500k into his own campaign, so it will be interesting to see how much of the $725,000 his campaign is reporting having raised came from the candidate himself. But whether Wiens dipped into his own bank account, raised the money or had it delivered by a magical fairy, $725,000 is still a lot of money. This result pretty much can't help but put a few dents in Jane Norton's 'aura of inevitability.'
The biggest news from Q4 on the Republican side is the anemic $40,000 raised by Buck, whose spokesman termed it "a disappointment." We wouldn't call it a disappointment so much as a "disaster," since most of Colorado's congressional candidates pulled in much more than that in Q4.
While Buck does have the support of outside groups, we hear that Republicans who are supportive of Buck as a candidate are now starting to encourage him to run in CD-4. If Buck can only net $40,000 in a quarter, then he's not ready to be a candidate for U.S. Senate, although he has shown the chops to be a strong candidate for another office.
Given the fact that Republican Cory Gardner continues to make stupid mistakes and has been weak to this point in his campaign against Democrat Betsy Markey, it's no surprise that many Republicans view Buck as a better choice for that seat anyway. Buck has a natural base in Greeley, which is a major population center in the district, and his relatively weak fundraising would be less of an issue in a congressional race than a Senate primary with two big money opponents. Democrats would probably prefer that Buck stay in the Senate primary and make Wiens and Jane Norton spend every last penny that they raise, but we can't disagree that it would make sense for a lot of reasons for Buck to switch gears.
This video was just released showing U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton praising the Tea Party, 9/12 and Glenn Beck faithful. The video is supposedly from a Norton meeting with Morgan County Republicans on Nov. 2, which shows that Norton's campaign was aware of the need to placate the Tea Party even before they were showing their anger towards her campaign. The video also shows that there apparently aren't a lot of Morgan County Republicans, but we digress...
As we've done in other election years, we regularly poll our readers on various races to gauge changing perceptions. These obviously aren't scientific polls, but they do help to show how the perception of various candidates are changing. We'll conduct these polls each month and then show the results to see how the winds are shifting.
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
With less than a year until the 2010 primaries, it's time to start the annual Colorado Pols Polls.
As we've done in other election years, we regularly poll our readers on various races to gauge changing perceptions. These obviously aren't scientific polls, but they do help to show how the perception of various candidates are changing. We'll conduct these polls each month and then show the results to see how the winds are shifting (click to see the Democratic poll).
As always, please vote based on what you think will happen, not on who you would vote for or which candidate you support personally. Think of it this way: If you had to bet the deed to your house, who would you pick?
Whatever desire that Democrats may have to bring Senate candidate Jane Norton down to earth should not permit subsidizing the rants of Colorado's greatest embarrassment since John Chivington. Noting very, very briefly what the Denver Post reports:
Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton will announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate today, much to the chagrin of retired U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo.
Tancredo said he would not have had a problem if Norton earlier this year had called fellow Republicans statewide to say she wanted to run for the office and outlined her reasons.
Instead, he charged that Norton in recent weeks got talked into running by Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Norton family friend and political ally.
"Does John McCain have a right to do that? Sure. Do I have a right to (complain) about it? You bet," Tancredo said in an interview Monday night. "Jane Norton is a nice lady who I like. End of story. But I fear she is not ready for prime time."
Yeah, we'll remember that next time you run for President on the "Send 'Em Back" ticket. And why do we have the feeling that Tancredo wouldn't be nearly so angry if McCain had suggested that he should run for Senate?
At least Post reporter Lynn Bartels had the sense to edit Tancredo for the print version, in the first version of this story he asks, "Do I have a right to bitch about it?"
If the messenger makes your skin crawl, it's really hard to listen to what they say. Almost makes us wonder if he's learned his lesson from the Sonia Sotomayor burn and is now using his ignominy to inversely boost the team...
The hot rumor circulating this morning is that as-yet undeclared GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton had a deal--and now she doesn't. And when the deal falls though, you usually walk away, don't you?
As you know, evidence that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was preparing to devote resources to Norton's campaign--which would have had the effect of severely debilitating primary opponents--caused a major backlash among the Republican rank-and-file last week. By Friday, the situation had gotten to the point that the leading (declared) GOP candidate, Weld County DA Ken Buck, was widely reported to be getting out of the race.
Today, though, everything has changed--Buck is defiantly staying in the race. Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams, who everybody we've talked to believes was intimately involved in the NRSC's backroom commitments to Norton, is running away from this debacle as fast as his denials can carry him. The GOP activist base, now sensitized to what almost happened right under their noses, will be watching for any further shenanigans--and they've used this opportunity to remind leadership in no uncertain terms what they think of "RINOs" like Jane Norton.
So where does that leave her?
Frankly, it depends--if an agreement for Norton to enter the 2010 Senate race was contingent on clearing the primary field for her, as it was for 2008 Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, she's now got a very good reason to reconsider. Or she could decide to stay and fight. Given that Norton has been floated as a potential candidate for higher office for years, and has always declined, it wouldn't shock us if she ultimately decided not to run for Senate.
The word we're getting--we'll remind everyone that it's only a rumor, though on good authority, and people do change their minds regardless--is the backlash of the last few days was considerably more than she bargained for.
Republicans have lately been dropping in and out of the U.S. Senate race like it's a student council seat, so we thought it time to take a new look at what's what now that we're past the 12 month mark until the primary.
Former Congressman Bob Beauprez will not run for the U.S. Senate, he said in an email to supporters this afternoon.
"Having been presented with the potential to serve in the United States Senate, Claudia and I considered it very carefully. However after significant reflection, I will not be a candidate for the Senate in 2010," he wrote.
His decision leaves four GOP candidates: Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, Evergreen businessman Dan Maes and Cleve Tidwell of Denver. Last week, the Denver Post reported that former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is also looking at entering the GOP field.
Let's face it: Beauprez isn't running because he looked around, considered various staffers, and finally realized what we'd been saying for a long time. He. Can't. Win.
It's no secret that Beauprez has been wanting to get back into politics since 2006, but he's still way too much damaged goods.
Meanwhile, Jane Norton's Senate bid is basically a lock at this point. Everybody's talking about it. Democrats we've talked to this evening seem awfully confident, like they know something we don't know. That's likely to be the case for a majority of Colorado voters, a good percentage of whom probably think her first name is Gale. Though to be fair, voters could think her first name was "Ken," and it's still a positive for her. Name ID is name ID, especially in a GOP primary--and general election--where nobody knows anybody.
And for all the buzz about "salvation," we kind of doubt Ken Buck sees it that way--and he's probably the one extant candidate we're not writing off yet.
UPDATE: We omitted Cleve Tidwell from our original post. We regret the error. Deeply.
