(The word of the day is “haruspicy” – promoted by Colorado Pols)
With the election only a month away, and most mail ballots going out in the next couple of weeks, I guess it is time to make my predictions.
I didn’t do as good with the primary results as I usually do, so now I have to try to vindicate myself.
Below the fold are my guesses. I have been far too busy to pay much attention to the legislative races so I won’t even try there except to say I doubt the Dems will loose control of either house. Perhaps a seat or two in each, though.
Keep in mind, this is what I think will happen, not necessaily what I want to happen.
US Senate – Michael Bennet This is getting closer than I would have thought. The message coming from the candidates is mostly about each other and not about themselves which is never a good thing. I think in the end it will be Bennet because Buck is being successfully painted as too extreme (and correctly so).
CD1 – Diana DeGette Duh!
CD2 – Jared Polis Duh, but with less emphasis
CD3 – John Salazar Very popular in the district, and Tipton just has not made the case to toss him.
CD4 – Betsy Markey Some of her votes were not popular with her party, but they carried huge weight in the district. Gardner’s campaign does not seem to be able to get their poop in a group.
CD5 – Doug Lamborn He’s a do-nothing, but he’s their do-nothing.
CD6 – Mike Coffman Duh! (with the same emphasis as CD1)
CD7 – Ed Perlmutter This is getting closer than I would have expected, but Ed is very popular in his district and has a good campaign organization. He should do just fine.
Governor – Hickenlooper The most interesting part of this story is how badly the GOP candidate will get beat by a 3rd-party guy. Even the libs may benefit from this one!
Treasurer – Cary Kennedy She has done a good job, and campaigns well. She should be okay despite her moneybags opponent.
Secretary of State – Bernie Buescher Been the sleeper race that it usually is. Gessler never got it together. Buescher should win easily.
Attorney General – John Suthers This is the tougher one to call. If Garnett is going to take this away from Suthers, he has to really step up his game and fast. I think incumbency will carry Suthers.
Amedments 60, 61 & Prop.101 – Fail These all go together and they will fail together. The message about their extreme nature is the only message being heard about them.
Amendment 62 (Personhood) – Fail Was blown out of the water two years ago, will die again but by probably a smaller margin.
Amendment 63 (oppose health care reform) – Pass This is a tough one. I have found it very difficult to guage how the population really thinks about the federal health insurance reform legislation. I think most people are unsure as they don’t really know what all of the ramificatons will be. So far very little has been said about this one so I am feeling like the opposition is not getting as organized as it should be. If it passes, it will be by a small margin and will likely be tossed out by the courts anyway.
Prop. 102 (PR Bonds) – Pass Will likely pass as the ballot title is a bit vague about what it actually does and therefore sounds reasonable (which it is not). Again, have not seen any organized opposition formed.
Ref’s P, Q, and R – pass These are all common sense referenda that have gotten little attention, probably due to their mundaneness. The only controversy may be with P which allows gambling issues to be decided by those locally affected and not the whole state. But they should all pass easily enough. The other two deal with disaster planning and a tax emption for very low-income property.
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But I don’t think all 7 incumbent members of Congress will get through. I’d look for a defeat in either CD3 or CD4 (maybe both).
I also think 63 will fail.
I agree with you and I’m going to go further, the polling pretty much says at this point that Bennet is going to lose this race. While not impossible that he’s going to make up ground here in the last month I’m going to agree with Nate Silver get ready to sigh a little bit as down a beer on a Tuesday night in November muttering, “Lucky stars help us, it is going to be Sen. Buck.” Not that I won’t be passing out literature and trying to turn out votes for Bennet, but I just don’t see him winning this one.
CD 3, CD4, and CD7 are all likely to dump their health control-loving libs out. The Bennet stops with Buck.
#60 ought to pass. It reverses the property tax freeze the district court found violated TABOR only to have the liberal supreme court reverse the decision. Freezing property tax without a vote of the people violates TABOR because it increases taxes. Even the lib, Treasurer Cary Kennedy, admitted on the stand that the freeze increases taxes.
Dan’s a longtime and astute observer; you’re the exact opposite. I’ll give you three guesses as to which one of you have credibility on this matter.
The last time I got a raise at work I paid more income tax.
Does TABOR require the voters to vote to approve that?
I admit it- I paid higher taxes and there was no TABOR vote.
but I know a good line when I see one.
You have a great day, lady. a sense of humor goes a long way to redeem even uber-right wing politics.
CD 3 is a rematch. Salazar v. Tipton. The last time, Tipton was trounced. I don’t see that changing this election cycle.
CD 7 has Perlmutter facing one of the weakest opponents that he’s ever faced – a man who has trouble even showing up to City Council meetings, and has the strong backing of neither the establishment wing of the GOP (Bob Beauprez campaigned against him) or the Tea Party. I don’t think that CD 7 voters will find Frazier to be the kind of heavy weight that it takes two oust an incumbent who has won repeatedly by wide margins in past election.
CD 4 is a naturally GOP district that Markey won only be defeating an abysmally weak incumbent Republican in a year when President Obama’s coattails were long, and by staking out a position of a Democratic moderate. Her incumbency advantage is as weak as it will ever be in her first run for re-election, immense resources have been dumped into the race on both sides of race, and Cory Gardner isn’t as much of a whacko as many of his fellow Republican candidates this year. Markey needs a strong third party vote to hold onto a plurality in this election and the seat is certainly capable of flipping. This one is down to the wire, but is clearly the most vulnerable high profile race in Colorado.
Almost every Republican and Democratic elected official in the state has come out against 60, 61, and 101, and the Blue Book makes a pretty clear case that this would wreck havoc on the state’s budget as have business groups and the campaign against these measures. They are doomed at this point.
I’m less confident that they fail, as they should. Far too many have learned from Republican Teabaggers that they should consider only their own pocketbook. Far too many voters are so shortsighted that they will see any extra $ they don’t pay in taxes as a benefit even if there is no road maintenance, no schools, no libraries, etc.
but I agree that the other Congressional incumbents will be present for the next two years.
How much if anything would you wager on those picks except for Polis?
There are a few of these that are not what I want to see happen, especially among the ballot questions.
My DENVER ballot has #300 on it.
Very exciting.
300 is a bit of a farce and I expect the Denver voters will see that and vote No.
For those outside of Denver, one of our more “interesting” private citizens managed to get a measure on the ballot that would create a Commission to prepare Denver for the eventual contact with extra-terrestrial life. That sounds rather harmless, but the measure also dictates the make up of the Commission and it is heavily laden with people who are “experienced” with alien-abduction scenarios.
At the risk of outing someone, I believe he was abducted in 1992, from somewhere in western OK. At least that’s what I heard.
After all that is the year we passed TABOR and Amendment 2.
is from the planet Zog. I’ve look into the folders where they describe how they plan “To Serve the Citizens of Denver” — and it’s a cookbook!
(actual plot of an old twilight zone episode.;-))
Excellent episode.
The Wiki is your friend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…
Tee hee hee.
As typical, you don’t understand that Dan can and does separate his desires from his analysis.
Unlike yourself, again, is that Dan is older, wiser, more intelligent, and with half a life time of experience in matters that you can only have numerical wet dreams about.
Clue: When any of us Polsters want help understanding something in the matters of stocks, bonds, derivatives, Wall Street, etc. who ya gonna call? Dan.
Not you.
I hope Dan does a better job on stocks than picking political races.
Bennet and Markey are both clear losers.
“Clear” requires either an operational crystal ball or right wing tinted specs.
over at 538.
Even that is, bottom line, someone’s opinion.
What would that look like approximately?
Links please.
I suck at finance!
He’s the finance guy. Dan Willis is the go-to guy for anything to do with election law, procedure, and history.
Enough said.
Something like 40% of people don’t like the HIR bill because it didn’t go far enough.
The effort to repeal Obamacare will likely peter out due to a couple simple narratives: “You mean you want to go back to recisions and pre-existing conditions?” “Oh, you mean you want to drop grandma’s health insurance benefits?”
There are several interesting things about the “forced insurance” problem.
Universal Insurance means either forced purchase or automatic enrollment. The former is necessary when you have private insurance. Automatic enrollment is easy if you have guaranteed health insurance funded by taxes like in Canada or guaranteed health care funded by taxes like in England.
So, let’s say forced insurance is eliminated (if that is possible by vote or constitution). Guaranteed Health Insurance or Guaranteed Health Care via taxes is an “easy” solution to the forced purchase problem. Going back to the drawing boards, we use expand medicare strategy by voluntary purchase and/or payroll, income or sales taxes. Those of us on the liberal side have always claimed the public option or Canadian style health insurance was the best and cheapest solution.
(The relatively regressive aspect of payroll or sales taxes doesn’t bother me so much, because the services being paid for are as widely distributed as the income stream. Using sales taxes has the advantage of being paid by undocumented workers, tourists and cash-livelihood business. We actually want the undocumented and tourists to get immunizations and health care.)
Just pony up that fine on your income taxes.
If one is young, single, and healthy, that’s a far cheaper option.
Especially if you know that you won’t get cancer or split your head open. Sure……
While 60, 61 and 101 have been generating lots of news (and rightfully so) Prop 102 has yet to be on the radar screen for most Colorado voters. There is a huge opposition to Prop 102, which includes everyone from the Sheriffs, Police Chiefs, DAs, criminal defense bar, Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, victims groups, criminal justice reform groups, community organizations and civil liberties groups. The campaign, Citizens to Protect Colorado Communities has a web site, votenoto102.org. Today’s column by Susan Greene gives a great explanation of what this measure is all about…nothing more than a bailout for the bond industry.
http://www.denverpost.com/gree…
Prop 102 is going down…help spread the word that our ballot process should not be used as a money-making venture for the struggling bail bond industry!
However, I disagree on CD4. CD4 is a traditionally Republican district that was lost during a massive anti-republican swing. The pendulum has swung back and Markey is now, not only part of the establishment but also, part of the party that has lost favor with voters. I think that this makes it highly likely for Gardner to pick it up.
Is Dead. I haven’t seen a single ad, except the third party negatives. The only ad that mentions Gardner is the “he skipped votes to raise money one.” I wonder what his name ID is, especially where most of the vote is in Weld and Larimer. Not saying he isn’t going to win, there is just nothing to indicate it except for looking as pure numbers. Numbers don’t always tell the whole story.
But in my defense, most of the ones I missed were a surprise to everyone else too:
I got the big ones: Senagte and Gov.
Missed on CD’s 3 & 4, Treas. and SoS and 3 ballot questions.