November 05, 2006 02:22 AM UTC

Associated Press Drinks Beauprez Kool-Aid

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• by: Colorado Pols

Associated Press reporter Steve Paulson is back on the imaginary governor’s race beat.

In late September, Paulson wrote a story indicating that the governor’s race was a toss-up. Of course, nothing in the polls or the press would have indicated that Republican Bob Beauprez was anywhere near Democrat Bill Ritter at the time, but the race was at least closer then than it is today.

Paulson, however, is back at it again, saying that Beauprez is pulling closer to Ritter…despite a plethora of polls showing that Beauprez is actually losing ground in recent weeks. In fact, the most recent poll showed Ritter with a 22-point lead – the biggest margin in the race thus far.

As Colorado Media Matters reports:

The Associated Press reported that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez was “gaining some ground” against Democratic opponent Bill Ritter but offered no evidence to support that claim. In fact, the most recent publicly available polls show Ritter increasing his lead over Beauprez within the margin of error.

One day after the Rocky Mountain News noted in regard to a poll it sponsored that “Republican Bob Beauprez has failed to gain any ground on Democrat Bill Ritter in the Colorado governor’s race,” the Associated Press reported that “[r]ecent polls have shown” Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez “gaining some ground against Democrat Bill Ritter.” The AP cited no polls to support this claim. In fact, the two most recent publicly available polls have shown that Ritter has increased his lead within the margin of error since the previous installments of those polls. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, both polls showed Ritter leading by 22 percentage points.

Paulson’s story is so inaccurate that he is reporting the exact opposite of what is really happening in the governor’s race. It’s hard to be any more wrong than this.