Hillary Clinton was ahead of Donald Trump by 5 points in Colorado and Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet was ahead of Republican challenger Darryl Glenn by a whopping 15 points in a new poll released Tuesday by Louisville-based Magellan Strategies.
In both cases, loss of support among Republican voters was a big problem for the Republican candidate.
Magellan Strategies found that 40 percent of respondents preferred Clinton to 35 percent for Trump. That's a smaller lead than the 8-point advantage that a recent Quinnipiac University poll found.
Clinton's support had grown by 6 points among registered Republicans and by 5 points among voters 65 and older, a group that leans Republican, when compared to a similar poll taken in late August. Clinton's increase with those voters was somewhat offset by a 2-point increase in support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein overall and a 5-point increase for Stein among Democratic voters.
Libertarian Gary Johnson continues to draw 20 percent of voters 44 and under, usually a Democratic-leaning constituency, the poll found. His overall level of support is 12 percent.
Trump's favorability rating, already low, took a big hit in the new poll, going from 34 percent to 27 percent overall. His favorability declined 14 percent with Republicans and 15 percent with voters 65 and older. Magellan characterizes this as "the bottom falling out."
In the U.S. Senate race, Bennet had 47 percent support to Glenn's 32 percent. That's actually a little less of the overall vote than Bennet got in August, but Glenn's support declined more steeply. The percent of voters who were undecided increased 5 percent.
Bennett’s support grew by 8 points among Republicans and by 3 points among seniors. Support for Glenn among Republican voters dropped 14 points.
Magellan Strategies surveyed 500 likely voters on Oct. 12 and Oct. 13. This would have been after the second presidential debate and the release of 2005 audio in which Trump brags about kissing and groping women without their consent and as women had started to come forward with stories of Trump doing just what he described in the audio.
Some portion of the respondents also would have had a chance to watch Glenn and Bennet's only televised debate on Oct. 12. More significantly in terms of Republican support, this poll was taken after Glenn withdrew his support for Trump and then re-extended it somewhat conditionally.
All of this probably speaks to the divisions Trump's candidacy has provoked in the Republican Party.
You can see the full poll results here.
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