October 17, 2018 10:05 AM UTC

Magellan: Polis 47%, Stapleton 40%

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Sun’s John Frank reports on a new poll from GOP-aligned local pollster Magellan Strategies showing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis up seven points on Republican Walker Stapleton–and that’s not all:

Democrat Jared Polis remains in a comfortable lead in the Colorado governor’s race, according to a new poll, but the numbers showing a partisan gap in voter enthusiasm are even more troubling for Republicans…

The numbers from the poll — conducted Oct. 8-10 — show 59 percent of Democrats responded at the highest end of the scale when asked about their interest in the Nov. 6 election, compared to 47 percent for Republicans. When the top two levels are combined, Democrats held an eight-point advantage, just outside the roughly 7.5 percent margin of error for this partisan breakdown.

The dynamic quiets the notion that the confirmation process for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would give the GOP a boost because of its polarizing nature.

We never bought into the conventional wisdom briefly prevalent after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court that he bitter battle over his nomination would motivate Republicans to vote in the November elections. On the other hand, the failure to stop Kavanaugh was a bitter but powerful lesson for Democrats on the importance of turning out just before ballots went in the mail in Colorado. More polling will help firm up this trend, but the latter dynamic appears to be the one actually playing out in our state.

There are some other numbers in this survey that Democrats will find less positive, particularly with regard to two competing transportation ballot measures–one of which would create new debt that lawmakers would have to pay for with cuts to other programs, and another to raise sales taxes modestly to responsibly pay for road projects. A large disparity in support for the two could mean a big headache awaiting lawmakers in January, even if all other election trends put Democrats back in majority control of both chambers of the legislature.

At the top of the ticket, at least, Democrats are feeling good–with consistent poll numbers backing them up.