June 18, 2020 04:02 PM UTC

Update: Colorado U.S. Senate Primary

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• by: Colorado Pols

There are 12 days to go until the end of the 2020 Primary Election in Colorado. Here’s where things stand this afternoon in the marquee race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

Andrew Romanoff’s campaign is touting (touting?) the results of an internal poll showing that it trails former Gov. John Hickenlooper by a 12-point margin. As Justin Wingerter of The Denver Post reports, Romanoff’s campaign is not “fully sharing” these poll results, but the former House Speaker’s campaign claims the numbers show that he is “gaining quickly” on Hickenlooper.

If this poll is accurate — and keep in mind that Romanoff’s campaign is obviously sharing its “best case scenario” numbers — it would mean that Romanoff needs to pick up at least one point per day by June 30 in order to turn the Democratic Primary into a nailbiter. We have no doubt that Romanoff has closed on Hickenlooper to some degree after a tough couple of weeks for the former Governor, but getting to within 12 points of your opponent with less than two weeks left in the campaign seems like a strange reason to pump your fist.

According to an email sent out by the Romanoff campaign this afternoon, “Since our last poll in this race, Andrew has gained 20 points while John Hickenlooper has lost 17.” When was this poll conducted? According to Ernest Luning at the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman:

That’s down from a 49-percentage point spread between the two Democrats in an internal October poll conducted by another firm for the Romanoff campaign. That survey showed Hickenlooper, who entered the race in late August, ahead 68% to 19% among likely primary voters, the campaign said.

Romanoff’s email later says that “Hickenlooper’s 49-point lead has fallen to just 12.” This could be from the same October poll mentioned earlier, but it could also be a reference to a September 2019 PPP poll that asked respondents to choose one of seven Democrats running for U.S. Senate at the time (Hickenlooper, Romanoff, Dan Baer, Mike Johnston, Alice Madden, John Walsh, and Angela Williams). These numbers make some sense if Romanoff’s campaign is comparing a recent head-to-head poll to a similar multi-candidate poll last fall…but if that’s the case, then we’re also talking about two entirely different questions. It’s the difference between comparing answers from a multi-choice test to a “true or false” quiz.

Regardless…if Romanoff does get close to Hickenlooper by June 30, it will be on a shoestring budget.

Hickenlooper announced today that his campaign raised $3.7 million between April 1 and June 10, a record amount for a U.S. Senate candidate in Colorado over a similar reporting period (Hickenlooper’s campaign finished the reporting period with $5.9 million in the bank). Hickenlooper doubled the amount raised by Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who brought in just $1.87 million. This marks the second consecutive reporting period in which Hickenlooper has substantially outraised Gardner.

Romanoff’s campaign, meanwhile, raised $710,000 over that same time period, leaving his campaign with $792,000 cash-on-hand. Romanoff’s bank account will essentially be empty on July 1, which does not help his “electability” argument against Gardner.

Hickenlooper’s campaign recently went up on television with its third different ad of the month, while Team Romanoff can really only afford to extend the buy on the only ad it has put up on television thus far. By the time the votes are counted, Republicans trying to meddle in the Democratic Primary may end up outspending Romanoff’s campaign entirely.

In hindsight, we almost could have replaced this entire post with that last sentence.