August 25, 2010 11:53 PM UTC

New Reuters/Ipsos Poll Gives Democrats Plenty to Sweat

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• by: Colorado Pols

Here’s the memo for the new Ipsos poll of major Colorado races: the biggest news here is the 9-point lead for GOP nominee Ken Buck over Democrat Michael Bennet–ads hitting Buck directly hadn’t started airing when this poll was taken, but attack ads against Bennet were in full swing. We do expect these numbers to tighten once the air war is joined, and there appear to be some questions about the sampling for this poll, but Democrats would be fools to ignore the trajectory. A long campaign season lies ahead.

In the gubernatorial race, Ipsos has GOP nominee Dan Maes’ numbers stabilizing, but still distantly short of what he needs to win with insurgent Tom Tancredo in the race. Without Tancredo, Maes is tied with Democrat John Hickenlooper according to this poll. Tancredo does seem to be taking heat for his spoiler role while he continues to savage Maes at every opportunity, but nobody expects him to go anywhere. One poll notwithstanding, Tancredo knows he is the more credible conservative candidate over Maes, and still can hope realistically to outperform him in November.