Poll: Republican leads in Colorado Senate

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has an eight-point lead over Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) in a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

{mosads}Gardner leads Udall by 48 to 40 percent in the live-caller poll, with an independent candidate pulling 8 percent, results that are much more bullish for the Republican than any others recently. With the third candidate out of the race, Garder’s lead expands to 10 percent. 

Gardner is doing well among key demographics, though. He leads among independents by two points and has a 19-point advantage among men.

Among female voters, a traditionally Democratic bloc, Udall only leads by three, 46 to 43 percent, a sign that their “war on women” charges against the GOP might not be resonating. Gardner was the first GOP Senate candidate to call for over-the-counter birth control, trying to muddle attacks against his past support for personhood. 

The survey’s sample could be weighted too much toward the GOP though — Republicans make up 34 percent of the sample, while Democrats are 27 percent in the swing state.

Other recent polls have found Udall in a better position, though still facing a competitive race. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released Wednesday had Gardner leading by 43 to 42 percent, and the half-dozen nonpartisan public polls before that had Udall in the lead.

But the trend has been more favorable to Gardner overall since mid-summer, and Republicans are feeling more confident about his chances to pull off a win.

Democrats point out that Quinnipiac has been wrong in Colorado before — its final 2012 poll found Mitt Romney leading President Obama by a point, when Obama went on to win the state by 5 points. Udall’s campaign manager tweeted Wednesday evening that the campaign’s last two internal polls had him leading by 5 and 6 points.

Quinnipiac’s live-caller survey of 1,211 likely voters on landlines and cellphones was conducted from Sept. 10 to 15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.