Republican Walker Stapleton will need to cover some ground between now and Election Day if he wants to be Colorado’s next governor, with a new poll released Wednesday showing Democrat Jared Polis is holding on to a single-digit lead in the polls and a big lead among unaffiliated voters.
Released by Republican-leaning Magellan Strategies, the poll had the same headline results as the Healthier Colorado released poll Oct. 2. That poll was completed with help from Magellan Strategies and Keating Research and showed Polis ahead by 7 points.
Wednesday’s results show Polis leading Stapleton 47 to 40 percent overall, with Libertarian candidate Scott Helker earning 4 percent support. Just 9 percent of respondents said they were undecided.
The results are based on a telephone survey of 500 likely general election voters in the state conducted between Oct. 8 to Oct. 10. The overall results have a 4.38 margin of error.
If you’re in Stapleton’s camp, you’ll want to look at away from responses from unaffiliated voters: This group — which as the poll memo notes, is the subgroup of voters that decide Colorado’s elections — prefers Polis to Stapleton by 26 points (46 to 20 percent).
However, 26 percent of respondents in this group said they were still undecided.
“It remains to be seen if Walker Stapleton can improve his support among those voters in the remaining three weeks before Election Day,” Magellan’s memo reads.
The survey found the so-called Blue Wave could be surging in Colorado. Using a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 showing the strongest interest in the election, 59 percent of Democrats answered with a 10, compared with 47 percent of Republicans.
Digging into the results even further, this poll suggests both men are virtually tied among support from men, with each receiving 43 percent of support. Polis has a big lead among women, ahead of Stapleton by 50 to 37 percent.
The poll breaks down support among age groups, with Polis leading among the 18 to 44 crowd by 15 points and among the 45 to 64 crowd by 8 points. Stapleton is leading Polis among the 65 and older folks, with a 7-point lead over the congressman. Both have pretty good image ratings.
The survey was commissioned and paid for by several Magellan Strategies clients; their memo notes Magellan Strategies is not working for or with any gubernatorial candidate or PAC interested in the state's race.
