District by district – Colorado

COLORADO-03

Rep. Salazar trails by four

{mosads}Rep.
John Salazar (D-Colo.) trails his GOP opponent, Scott Tipton, by four
points in The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll, with 8 percent of likely
voters undecided.

Independent voters are breaking for Tipton by 15 points. He’s also winning among male, female, middle-aged and older voters.

Salazar
is winning among younger voters, but the three-term lawmaker gets mixed
reviews from his constituents. When asked about him, 46 percent gave
Salazar a favorable rating while 48 percent gave him an unfavorable one.

A
big issue in this district is earmarks. Tipton has criticized Salazar
for bringing home millions in federal dollars and has taken a
no-earmark pledge.

Voters
tend to agree with him. When asked if they’d rather have a member of
Congress who’d fight to cut spending or one who will fight to bring
benefits to the district, 55 percent said they’d prefer a lawmaker who
cut spending while 36 percent wanted one who would bring back the
money.

Independent voters also preferred a lawmaker who would cut spending.

Salazar
is the brother of senator-turned-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. He’s
had Labor Secretary Hilda Solis out to campaign for him. Ken Salazar
has been notably absent in this GOP-leaning district. The Interior
secretary is unpopular among the district’s voters and has been an
issue in the race: Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion-rights
group, ran an attack ad against John Salazar — only it called him by
his brother’s name five times.

A corrected version of the ad aired later.

The
Hill’s poll was conducted Oct. 19-21 by Penn Schoen Berland. The survey
consisted of 400 phone interviews among likely voters and has a margin
of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.