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September 02, 2022 09:34 AM UTC

O'Dea vs. O'Dea: Mixed Google Messages Aren't Helping

  • 6 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

With election season about to kick into its traditional high gear after Labor Day weekend, most voters’ first stop in researching the candidates they’re seeing in the news is to Google their names–maybe with an issue like “pro-life” appended to narrow the result.

If you search Google for “Joe O’Dea pro life,” you’re greeted with this ad from O’Dea’s campaign:

Another response some users are receiving tries to get a jab in about Michael Bennet’s recent ad depicting the Senator fly fishing, which makes absolutely no sense outside a small class of political insiders:

That’s just weird, folks. One in a hundred might get this joke.

Most users are seeing one of these paid advertisements, along with a few ads from Michael Bennet’s campaign explaining O’Dea’s stumbles on the issue of abortion– claiming to be “personally very pro-life,” supporting the Supreme Court picks who just overturned Roe v. Wade, and declaring his support for 2020’s Proposition 115 failed abortion restriction ballot measure. Both sides are spending to make sure their message is above the fold for search engine queries.

Unfortunately for O’Dea, here’s the very first non-paid search response:

This directs to a page from O’Dea’s primary campaign days, consisting a number of anti-abortion activists in Colorado essentially arguing that O’Dea will be better for the pro-life movement because he’s a more viable Republican candidate than Ron Hanks.

And also shoring up O’Dea’s anti-abortion bonafides:

Joe O’Dea strongly supports a nationwide ban on late-term abortion, a nationwide ban on taxpayer funding for abortion, a nationwide parental choice requirement, and will fight any attempt to make religious hospitals perform a procedure they object to. Joe is adamantly against Chuck Schumer’s late term abortion bill, and strongly opposes Jared Polis’ late-term abortion bill.

This week, a number of Republican candidates including Colorado’s Heidi Ganahl and Barb Kirkmeyer were caught deleting references to their formerly strident positions against abortion. O’Dea wasn’t one of them–but now you can see why the others started mashing the delete button after winning their primary. The gulf between Republican primary voters and the general electorate is so vast on this issue that it’s impossible to please one side without alienating the other.

When the average voter sees an ad for “pro-choice” Joe O’Dea followed by a bunch of ads calling O’Dea a liar and then a page from O’Dea’s own primary campaign that says the same, they’re going to realize something’s fishy–and it’s not the fish Bennet caught.

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6 thoughts on “O’Dea vs. O’Dea: Mixed Google Messages Aren’t Helping”

  1. Daily Kos Morning Digest reported

    CO-Sen: The Tarrance Group for the Republican Attorney General’s Association: Michael Bennet (D-inc): 48, Joe O’Dea (R): 47

    The link goes to a Washington Examiner story, not the actual poll.  The article describes the poll this way:

    Veteran Republican strategist Dave Sackett, of the Tarrance Group, is the pollster; he surveyed 600 likely registered voters Aug. 22-25. The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 4.1 points.

    “These poll numbers done by a very reputable pollster and firm show what we’ve been seeing on the ground these past few weeks: Republicans can win in Colorado this November,” state GOP Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown said in a statement. …

    The Colorado GOP, which shared the poll with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday evening, declined to make available the survey’s findings in the governor’s race. Gov. Jared Polis (D) is running for reelection against Republican challenger Heidi Ganahl. But the information provided included data on the race for Colorado attorney general and was more good news for Republicans.

    That race is a pure toss-up, according to the poll, with incumbent state Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) locked in a 44% to 44% tie with Republican challenger John Kellner, a district attorney. Twelve percent said they were undecided.

    No idea how they defined “600 likely registered voters.” It’s gotta be something special, as they admit “Boosting O’Dea, 60, was his strength with independent voters. He trailed Bennet by only 4 points, 49% to 44%, with this crucial voting bloc.”  Hard to imagine how Democrats (28% of active registered voters) and Unaffiliated (45% of active registered voters) would favor Bennet and yet Republicans (25% of active registered voters) would pull O’Dea within 1%..

     

    1. All I had to see was that the Republican Attorneys General Association did a survey.

      RAGA does not have this “ survey” posted on their website, which is a tell that it is bogus. 
      Yet somehow reputable newsoutlets like The Hill and Colorado Politics are quoting from this “poll” like its gospel.

      Who posts fake polls and quotes from them without linking to them? Oh, yeah… Denver Post and Colorado Pols, when they wanted to boost Hickenlooper in the Senate Race.

      1. It is a selective release of an internal poll, not necessarily "bogus" or "fake polls." … Details of the poll are not on the candidate pages, the RAGA webpage, or the polling organization's page. 

  3. Jeebus flippin’ — these deranged MAGA Republican clots are so desperate now, there’s no cheap, transparent stunt they won’t attempt. So embarrassing for them. Washington Examiner? Tarrance Group? Please (snicker). I particularly enjoy KBB’s dutiful BS attempt to whistle past the graveyard.

    O’Dious, the unmistakable anti-abortion/anti-choice, election-denying, pro-FPOTUS candidate, is now allegedly within a point of Senator Michael Bennet?

    Sure, Jan. And Bang-Bang Barbie is a Rhodes Scholar.

    1. Well, after all the miles she recorded in 2020, Lauren “Bim” Boebert probably qualifies as a Roads Scholar. 

      Worth mentioning:  the two polls that make it to RealClearPolitics list are

      PPP (D)**  8/30 – 8/31…..782 RV…..3.5% MoE …..46% – 35%…..Bennet 11

      Trafalgar Group (R)*  8/15 – 8/19…..1087 LV…..2.9% MoE…..47% – 42%…..Bennet 5

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