TOPLINE
In a sign of Colorado’s increasingly Democratic lean, a poll released Tuesday showed former Gov. John Hickenlooper with a commanding lead over Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in the U.S. Senate race, while former Vice President Joe Biden overwhelmingly leads President Donald Trump as well.
DENVER, CO - AUGUST 4: Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper speaks to members of the media in ... [+]
KEY FACTS
The poll, released by Montana State University on Tuesday, has Hickenlooper leading Gardner by 17 points, 48% to 31%, in a race that will be pivotal in determining control of the Senate.
In the presidential race, Biden leads Trump by 18 points, 53% to 35%, adding to a spate of recent swing state polls showing Biden leading by mid-to-high single digit margins.
Colorado voters are negative on Trump’s coronavirus response, with 54% saying they disapprove and just 34% approving, compared to 64% approval and 23% disapproval for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.
The poll showed overwhelming support for stay-at-home orders, as Colorado begins to reopen, with around 80% of respondents saying they support national, state and local orders.
There was equally high support for economic relief measures such as direct cash assistance to individuals and small businesses, though 53% said they oppose such measures for large corporations.
Coloradans are split on the issue of Chinese blame for coronavirus, with 42% saying they believe China is responsible and 41% saying it isn’t, but only 24% agree with Trump’s belief that the coronavirus originated in a lab and 39% say it wasn’t.
Key background
Once a highly competitive swing state, Colorado has been trending Democrat for the past several cycles. Bush won the Centennial State by 4 points in 2004, but it swung for Obama in 2008 and has continued to vote Democratic on the presidential level. Cory Gardner is in a tough spot; his election to the Senate in 2014, a wave year for Republicans, was the last year any Republican won a statewide election in Colorado.
Democrats had hoped to recruit Hickenlooper to challenge Gardner, despite his preoccupation with his presidential bid for the first half of 2019. His late entrance into the race partially cleared a crowded Democratic field, though he still faces opposition in the primary from State Rep. Andrew Romanoff. Colorado is seen as one of the Senate seats most likely to flip this year, along with Alabama to the GOP. Hickenlooper outraised Gardner in the first quarter of 2020, $4.1 million to $2.5 million, although Gardner still has a 2-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage.
What to Look For
If polls continue to show such large margins for the Democrats, and election handicappers begin to shift the race to likely or even safe Democratic, Republicans may start asking whether Colorado is worth contesting. It’s possible they will come to believe their path to maintaining their Senate majority lies in trying to hold other states like Maine, North Carolina and Arizona and perhaps trying to capture more competitive swing states like Michigan and New Hampshire.
