The Colorado Senate Race
Republican incumbent Ben Nighthorse Campbell stepped away from an easy win for a third term, making Colorado the center of one of the most hotly contested races of the season. It’s a case of the millionaire vs. the lawyer with Republican business leader Pete Coors running against the popular Democrat Attorney General Ken Salazar. Polls have the two in a statistical dead heat (except for a silly result from the increasingly-unreliable Gallup).
Of course, Salazar has the support of 75% of the state’s Hispanic population, but he also does surprisingly well with traditionally conservative rural voters due to his western Colorado heritage and experience as a rancher. He took 56 of 64 counties in the Republican state when he won Attorney General.
Coors’ political inexperience shows as he has been weak on issues and with verbal slips (like when he inserted North Dakota in a sentence about axis of evil North Korea on national TV).
When the two debate they each espouse the predictable party rhetoric (another debate is scheduled for tonight). Colorado has a strong military culture and President Bush leveraged that as he campaigned on behalf of Coors earlier this week. Were it not for this race, I would predict an easy win for the president. Even with this contentious race bringing Democrats out on election day the president will take Colorado, but he may not be enough to ensure a victory for Coors.
This will be close and I don’t think the Republicans can hold on to what should have been an easy win. I put this one as a loss of a Republican Senate seat as the Democrats pick up one.
Update – 19 Oct: A Rocky Mountain News and News 4 poll shows Coors has a five-point advantage over rival Salazar, as they have 45 and 40 percent of the vote respectively. One month ago Salazar had a ten-point advantage. Rumor has it that Coors is receiving a boost from the general feeling that Bush will win.
Hey you unbiased right winger faux news nut job…
Where are you stories about how the republicans are destroying voter registrations?
in Nevada
Oregon
And others…
you should talk about that!
Keep it clean and civil.
(1) This is a blog, not FNC.
(2) I have never claimed to be unbiased. In fact, my bio on the front page clearly states that I am Republican and Libertarian, and “a little Libertarian”. In addition, I list a number of organizations to which I belong, none of which fall into the “hug a whale in a tree for socialism” category.
(3) I took note of the alleged violations to which you hysterically point and reported them to Bill Hobbs who is tracking all reports of that type.
(4) As Bill is doing such a great job of tracking these reports, I have only reported them to Bill and not blogged any of them, including the huge number of Democrat violations — except when they are connected with office burglaries, vandalism, invasions and terrorizing of the elderly.
(5) You should take troll lessons — you’re really not very good at it. ;D
I was just bored. And your stories are boring right now… trying to pick a fight. And as you well know an “unbiased right winger faux news nut job” is really a compliment. I mean really. Letty is taking things WAY too personal.
I’m kind of scared at the idea of having a guy who makes beer, and not even good beer, becoming a senator for Colorado. This is right up there with a football coach in the senate from nebraska. North Dakota as the axis of evil huh? I seruiously hope Colorado voters are smarter than to do that. Although Colorado did go to Bob Dole in 96, so that doesn’t really give me that much confidence in my own people. **Sigh** Oh well. I’m really saddened by the state of this nation today, where both sides have to result to fraud and tearing up each other’s ballots in order to try and guaruntee a win. It seems winning at all costs has taken the emphasis away from letting the people actually decide who they want as their leader. I, personally believe that Colorado will light up Blue this time around, but it could just as easily go the other way. I very seriously hope that Bush will be moving out of the white house after nov. 2, because he will take this nation even farther downhill than he already has. The problem is that half of the nation can’t see that, and that really scares me.