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.
Blog post #3896 in category
Races of '04
posted 14 October 04