June 12, 2018 01:05 PM UTC

This is All Very Silly

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Esteban Hernandez of Denverite sums up the incredibly-wispy rumors of a “poll” in the Democratic race for Governor that nobody seems to have actually seen:

Well, this is awkward. People are citing a recent “poll” on the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, but nobody seems to have pretty critical information about it.

Last week, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Cary Kennedy and Mike Johnston sent out fundraising emails referencing a poll showing Kennedy leading the Democratic field and Johnston making progress. The email includes numbers showing Kennedy in first, with U.S. Rep. Jared Polis in second, Johnston in third and Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne in last place.

The results are exactly the same as those from a brief blog post dated June 6, which under the headline “New Poll Puts Kennedy Ahead in Democratic Race” were published by independent pollster and political analyst Floyd Ciruli…

…For one thing, Ciruli starts his post with a disclaimer in his post by saying that this “new poll” is rumored but not released — that is, not only do we not know the methodology or who was asked, but Ciruli may not either (and he hasn’t returned our calls about it). The numbers are all also multiples of five, and he notes they’re “likely rounded” — in other words, he apparently doesn’t know what the actual numbers are.

Ciruli says in the blog post that it’s the poll “referenced by Governor John Hickenlooper.” What Ciruli is referring to here is what Hickenlooper said to the media on May 30, when he said he was disappointed in Kennedy for running a negative ad since “most polls” he’d seen seemed to show she was going to win.

It’s hard to decide who should feel more embarrassed about all of this, but if forced to make a choice, we’d go with Floyd Ciruli.