Maybe our readers can help us figure out if there’s ever been a gubernatorial campaign that’s been as much of a disaster as Dan Maes’ in Colorado.
Maes, the Republican nominee, is actually drawing below 10 percent in the polls. If he were to fail to hit 10 percent in next week’s election against Democrat John Hickenlooper and third party candidate Tom Tancredo, it would officially consign the Republican Party to minor party status in Colorado until 2014.
That means Republican Party candidates across the board would not be listed at the top of the ballot with the Democrats, but down lower with the other minor parties. The fact that this could happen on the watch of state GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams is just icing.
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The Democratic nominee for governor of Rhode Island ain’t happy that President Obama is declining to endorse him over former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who is running as an independent. Obama can “take his endorsement and shove it,” Frank Caprio told radio listeners this morning.
‘Vote fraud’ bamboozlers launch iPhone app to report (bogus) cases of voter fraud to try to game 2010 election. Yes, that’s my gloss …
Not looking good for Meg Whitman.
Click on the TPM logo to see the full sized graph which makes it easier to scan along the dates and see where key inflection points happened. What’s interesting is that the inflection point came right around September 1st, about a month before Whitman’s nanny story broke on September 29th.
It certainly possible that the nanny story buried Whitman and made it impossible for her to recover. But the trend makes it pretty clear that wasn’t the turning point.
Late Update: Our Evan McMorris-Santoro may have the answer. That September first pivot point matches up pretty nicely with when Jerry Brown finally went on the air against Whitman. Brown got a ton of grief through the summer for basically allowing Whitman to have the airwaves to herself. And by late summer it was looking like Brown might have missed his chance. But Brown’s strategy was always to hang back and let Whitman spend her millions and only go on air late. Now his strategy looks pretty good.
I mentioned earlier that Dan Maes is polling so poorly in the Colorado governor’s race that if the numbers are matched by his election day showing — i.e., less than 10 percent of the general election vote — it will officially relegate the Republican Party to minor party status in Colorado.
Now there’s another new poll out of Colorado in which Maes pulls just 5 percent of the vote. Here’s what his showing looks like on the TPM Poll Average chart: Read More
We’ve updated our numbers as of 1 PM today. So take a look at our snapshot of where the key races stand as of just 8 days before the election. We’ve put together a slide show of the trend graphs, as of today, of all the key races. Take a look.
First official report of “bumping of bellies” reported in GOP voter suppression efforts.