Hill Consulting: Udall 43, Schaffer 38; Rasmussen: Udall 51, Schaffer 44

Facing a stiff national political headwind, Bob Schaffer no doubt is currently trailing in Colorado's race for the U.S. Senate. But polling distortions have Lefties gleefully imagining that Mark Udall leads by 11 - or even 14 - points. Okay, let's get real for a moment.

Hill Research Consultants, a firm with an excellent track record in Colorado, sent a memo to its client the Bob Schaffer campaign yesterday with some heartening news:

As you know, following the financial turmoil in the markets, ballot shares for the Republican candidates, John McCain and Bob Schaffer, were down. But I am pleased to report that in the past three days there has been a return to the Republicans, narrowing the deficit to just outside the margin of error.

What are the results according to Hill's tracking survey?

Mark Udall 43
Bob Schaffer 38
Other candidates 6
Undecided 13

And according to Hill, the characteristics of the undecided voting population indicate they likely will break in Bob Schaffer's direction. At this stage in the game, Mark Udall remains the beneficiary of some national anti-Republican sentiment and the favorite to prevail on November 4. Rasmussen has Udall ahead by seven, 51-44.

But it ain't quite over yet.

Schaffer, Udall Debate Three Times In Coming Week

SvU will have coverage and analysis of the three debates taking place this week, starting tonight.



The Schaffer/Udall race is headed right where folks other than the MSM and hard core lefties predicted--down to the wire and most likely within the margin of error. Stay tuned to Schaffer v Udall for all the latest in perhaps the marquee Senate race of 2008.

There are three debates coming up in the next week--not sure how many tickets (if any) are left, best to call ahead or email the campaign:

Monday, October 6th, Bob will debate Boulder Liberal Mark Udall during a live television debate sponsored by 9News. The debate will take place at Gates Concert Hall at the University of Denver (2344 Iliff Avenue, Denver). We invite you to join us at 5:00pm for a rally to welcome Bob and cheer him on to victory! Following the rally, you are invited to attend the debate which will air live at 7:00pm on channel 9. You will be able to see firsthand the clear differences between Bob and Boulder Liberal Mark Udall.

The second debate is sponsored by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and will take place on Tuesday, October 7th at the Hyatt Regency Denver (650 15th Street, Denver, Colorado). We again invite you to join us before the debate at 1:30pm for a rally. The debate will immediately follow the rally at 3:00 pm. The chamber will host a reception with the senate candidates after the debate which you are invited to attend.

One of the traditional events of the campaign season, the Pueblo Chieftain debate, will take place on Monday, October 13th. The debate will be held at the Hoag Recital Hall on the Colorado State University-Pueblo campus (2200 Bonforte Boulevard, Pueblo). We invite you to experience the tradition for yourself and attend the debate at 7:30pm.

There are a limited number of tickets available for each of these debates. You can reserve a ticket by calling 720-377-1600 or emailing teamschaffer@bobschafferforsenate.com. Upon reserving a ticket, you will receive a confirmation email with additional event details.

Just Another Poll Showing Bob Schaffer- Mark Udall Race Heading for the Wire

The Denver Post reports today:

[Mark] Udall, who had been up by as many as 10 percentage points in previous polls, is favored by 43 percent of registered voters surveyed, to [Bob] Schaffer's 38 percent.

But with 14 percent of respondents saying they haven't made up their minds less than a month before the election, it's clear the race is much tighter than it appeared to be over the summer, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research.

The narrowing gap in Colorado's U.S. Senate race is part of a trend highlighted a couple weeks ago by Rasmussen.

The Mark Udall fan club might want to postpone popping the champagne corks.

Rasmussen Says Schaffer-Udall Race Hasn't Been This Close Since February: 48-46

Rasmussen Reports, the gold standard of polling, released the latest results in Colorado's U.S. Senate race, showing an ever-tightening trend since June. The last time the showdown between Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer was so close was in February: Udall 48, Schaffer 46. This result confirms the recent but less reliable National Journal survey results that also showed Udall leading within the margin of error, 41-38.

Lefty bloggers have been doing their bazookie dances over two other recent polls showing Mark Udall leading 48-40. One of them, conducted by Democrat-sponsored Public Policy Polling, skewed results by oversampling Democrat voters. Nice try. Quinnipiac has a bit more clout, but hasn't polled as consistently as Rasmussen.

The gold-standard Rasmussen and the less reliable National Journal paint a more nuanced picture of the state of the race than the hallucinating triumphalists on the Left will admit. But that's okay. The hard numbers should have Mark Udall supporters a little more uneasy. Complacency suits them just fine.

Bottom line: this race is going down to the wire, with a critical nationally-televised debate coming this Sunday on Meet the Press.

New National Journal Poll: Schaffer-Udall Race Within Margin of Error

A reader has tipped us to the release of a new poll in Colorado's U.S. Senate race that shows the two candidates within the margin of error. The survey was conducted from September 11-15 by Allstate/National Journal among 402 registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent (no free link available):

M. Udall 41%
B. Schaffer 38
Undec 19

Not the most reliable of polls, but it follows the recent trend showing the race in a tie or a slight lead for Mark Udall. Interestingly, the raw numbers are the same as a Schaffer-sponsored poll released in late August.

New Hill Research Consultants Poll a Reason for Guarded Bob Schaffer Optimism

Recent polls in Colorado's U.S. Senate race have shown Boulder liberal Mark Udall with a small lead over Bob Schaffer. The latest Rasmussen Report had Udall gaining from the July survey to reach a 47-41 advantage. Suffolk University's poll of 450 likely voters gave Udall an 8-point lead, and the Mason-Dixon outlier (surveying 400 voters) said Schaffer was down by 10.

Then out of the blue comes this interesting poll:

The poll, conducted by Hill Research Consultants - Schaffer's regular pollster - among 553 likely Colorado voters Aug. 23 and 24, shows Udall leading Schaffer 41 percent to 38 percent. That's within the survey's +/- 4.2 percent margin of error.

Are there reasons to give more credence to this latest survey? Hill surveyed more likely voters than Suffolk or Mason-Dixon did, and he employs a different methodology. Hill has 18 years of experience polling in Colorado, and was the only pollster to call U.S. Senator Wayne Allard's re-election victory in 2002.

The conclusion of Hill's analysis is most intriguing:

Turnout is likely to be extremely crucial to the outcome of this race. Without a huge turnout that includes the participation of many who have never voted in Colorado, Udall appears doomed. He trails Schaffer among the voters who voted in 2004 or 2006, falling farther behind those who voted in both. Udall leads Schaffer only among voters who have been registered to vote for five years or less. Among voters we judge most-likely-to-vote by a multi-item scale of propensity to vote—including demographics, past participation, and expressed interest in this election—Schaffer leads Udall by 2 percentages points, a net shift of 5 points from the results of the total sample.

On the other hand, it's vital to note that Hill is working for the Bob Schaffer campaign, and cross-tabs are not available to provide an independent analysis of the voting sample. Therefore, this poll should be taken by Schaffer supporters with guarded optimism. Another reliable survey reflecting similar results would be even more encouraging. But then again, maybe Hill is poised to repeat his 2002 performance.

(Apologies that further analysis of recent polls hasn't appeared here. Our poll tracker expert El Presidente has been especially busy covering the Democratic National Convention for the Peoples Press Collective. Then he's off to the Republican National Convention to provide blog coverage. Hopefully he can add his insights when he returns from all the hoopla.)

Zogby: Another "Outlier" Showing a Dead Heat Between Bob Schaffer and Mark Udall

Zogby releases today a poll conducted in June - it might as well be ancient history. Yes, Zogby isn't as reliable as - say, Rasmussen - or Quinnipiac, but it's just another in the collection of "outlier" polls that show Colorado's U.S. Senate race to be essentially tied. Writes Zogby:

Democrat Mark Udall will need a larger share of the Hispanic vote to take this seat currently held by Republican Wayne Allard. Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer are even at 40%. One-half of Hispanics are undecided.

Interesting that the Zogby poll found the contest so close even before Bob Schaffer wiped the floor with Mark Udall in the first debate.

Fasten your seat belts. It looks like a bumpy ride - especially for Mark Udall.

Washington Times: Big Oil Smear Backfiring on Big Blue Lie Machine

Reading an article like this one from today's Washington Times must make the folks at ProgressNow feel deservedly silly and their favored candidate Mark Udall just plain hopping mad:

Bob Schaffer's opponents have spent the past two months tarring him as "Big Oil Bob," an advocate of oil drilling and an energy-industry insider. Maybe he should thank them.

Two polls show Mr. Schaffer, the Colorado Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has erased a double-digit deficit and pulled within a nose of Democratic foe Mark Udall.

The reason, according to one poll, lies in fuel prices. Since gas hit $4 a gallon here, a majority of Colorado voters have come out in favor of offshore oil drilling and exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said a Quinnipiac Poll released last week.

At the same time, Mr. Schaffer went from trailing Mr. Udall by 10 percentage points in June - 49 percent to 39 percent - to a 44 percent to 44 percent tie in July. The June survey of 1,351 likely Colorado voters had an error margin of 2.7 percentage points; the July poll of 1,425 likely voters had a 2.6-point margin.

ProgressNow of course has reason to feel silly, having spent so much time and money on a full-fledged Internet campaign to tar the candidate they hate as "Big Oil Bob." The absurdity of their facile ad campaign had been pointed out as early as April.

And why might Mark Udall be angry? Besides the plummeting poll numbers? Perhaps his wife Maggie Fox's intimate connection with the 527 group League of Conservation Voters so singularly obsessed with tarring Bob Schaffer?

Politics is a fickle game. At some point, enough of the public comes to see through the deception - though the ill winds may yet again work against common sense and decency for a time. But for now, it's sure funny to see the tar blow back on the Big Blue Lie Machine.

Second Senate Race Debate Hosted By Fox 31

Monday July 28, noon, at the Fox 31 Studio, 100 E. Speer Blvd.

Bob Schaffer will address the rally before the debate, which will be filmed in a closed set and aired later this week.

I'll have pictures and video tomorrow afternoon.

Will the lack of an audience actually help Mark Udall? It'll be interesting to see which questions will dominate this debate, but I'm sure energy and the Iraq War will continue to play a major part in driving the conversation. Recent polls (a Dem pollster's 9-point Udall lead notwithstanding) have indicated a much tighter race, within the margin of error, than polls conducted earlier this summer.

Another apparent Schaffer victory in tomorrow's debate might help solidify not only his credentials and bolster his image, but also open even more questions for a somewhat disappointing Udall campaign showing of late.

Happy Birthday, Bob Schaffer!

A temporary respite from the give-and-take of the campaign... Today is Bob Schaffer's 46th birthday - Happy Birthday, Bob! The recent trend in campaign polling must be considered a nice present.

At the same time, we regret our oversight for not acknowledging Mark Udall's 58th birthday last week. Wonder how many cards he got from Hollywood liberals to go along with the campaign cash?

Colorado Senate Battle Remains A Toss Up

The Cook Political Report updated its list of Senate seats from May, and Colorado's battle between Mark Udall (D-Boulder Liberal) and Bob Schaffer remains a toss up, despite early leads in the polls for Udall.