Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Sen. Mark Udall have reasons to be mildly optimistic about their chances for re-election next year, according to a very early indicator Public Policy Polling put out Thursday. Neither candidate yet has a known opponent, which could shake up the results, but the Democratic-leaning survey firm said they checked that out.
The poll gauged the Democratic governor’s approval rating at 53 percent. While that’s on the positive side of for Hickenlooper, voters who disapprove of the affable leader has spiked from just 26 percent in November to 44 percent in the latest look. Approval, on the other hand, has been “pretty steady,” dropping only 2 points while those who were apparently ambivalent before pulled away from him.
“What’s happened is that a lot of Republicans and conservative leaning independents who were neutral on him during his first two years have moved into the negative column after his leadership on issues like guns and civil unions this year. Still his numbers are pretty strong,” the firm stated on its website.
Udall’s approval rating is 50 percent, with 33 percent disapproving of him in the home stretch of his first term in the U.S. Senate. The former representative rose to the Senate in 2008, beating Republican Bob Schaffer. 62.7 percent to 42.5, which mirrored the fortunes of Barack Obamam, who beat John McCain 53 percent to 44 in Colorado that year.
Public Policy Polling said Udall’s re-election hopes are bolstered by 50 percent approval and 31 percent disapproval among independent voters.
“With no serious Republicans running for either of these offices yet we basically tested every major GOP figure in the state against both Hickenlooper and Udall,” the poll report stated, naming former Congressman Bob Beauprez, Congressman Cory Gardner, Secretary of State Scott Gessler, 2010 Senate candidate Jane Norton, State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, Attorney General John Suthers, former Congressman Tom Tancredo and Congressman Scott Tipton.
“Not a single one of the Republicans we tested has a positive statewide favorability rating,” said the North Carolina-based firm founded by Democratic businessman Dean Debnam. “The one who comes closest is Suthers, who still has a -6 favorability rating. In addition to being unliked the GOP bench is also largely unknown- the only one with higher than 52% name recognition is Tancredo.”
Tancredo is the immigration-issue firebrand who has served Colorado in the statehouse and the U.S. House, before running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2007, then for governor as the Constitution Party nominee in 2010. Beauprez — the former Colorado congressman who lost the governor’s race in 2006 — trails Udall and Hickenlooper in respective matchups by 7 points each.
“Obviously it’s early and a lot could happen between now and next November,” the pollsters state about the 2014 vote. “But at least for now it looks like Democrats’ long winning streak in major statewide Colorado races is likely to continue.”
I’ll update this blog post if the state Republican Party decides to weigh in. Of this and that: As of April 2 at 12:44 p.m., Colorado had 915,292 registered Republicans, 875,240 Democrats and 857,395 unaffiliated voters, according to the Secretary of State’s office.