Politics

Colorado governor’s race ‘too close to call’

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Greg Campbell Contributor
Font Size:

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is neck-and-neck with potential Republican challengers Tom Tancredo and Scott Gessler, according to a new Quinnipiac poll that takes an early look at the 2014 governor’s race.

The poll shows the race too close to call, with Hickenlooper ahead of Tancredo, a former U.S. congressman and controversial Republican firebrand, 42 percent to 41 percent.

His margin over Gessler, the current Colorado secretary of state, is 42 percent versus 40 percent.

Hickenlooper’s overall approval rating is down to 47 percent from a 53 percent approval reported in April by liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling.

The Quinnipiac poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

Hickenlooper is feeling the blowback from his decision a few weeks ago to grant an indefinite stay of execution for convicted mass murderer Nathan Dunlap, who was scheduled to die in August for a 1993 shooting massacre at a Denver Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant.

Critics called the decision cowardly in that Hickenlooper neither granted clemency nor committed to the execution, putting people on both sides of the debate into limbo. Future governors can revoke the temporary stay.

The poll also found that Coloradans favor capital punishment by a wide margin, 69 to 24 percent. By roughly the same numbers, 67 to 27, they disapprove of the governor’s temporary stay.

As recently as Wednesday, Hickenlooper continued to defend the decision, telling 850 KOA radio station that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent to crime and that it’s being phased out in countries around the world.

While this particular issue may die out or be supplanted in the many months before the election, observers have seized on the fact that Hickenlooper’s margin is so slim despite two challengers who aren’t believed to have very broad statewide appeal.

Tancredo is a lightning rod within the Republican Party, having thrown the 2010 race into turmoil when he ran as a third-party candidate. He came in second to Hickenlooper, garnering 37 percent of the vote to Hickenlooper’s 51 percent.

With a strict stance on immigration policy, even some within his own party consider Tancredo to be too extreme.

Gessler is also not widely hailed as a strong candidate — in fact, he hasn’t even officially announced that he’s running, although he suspended his re-election campaign for secretary of state and formed a committee for the governor’s race. He’s also under an active investigation by the state’s Independent Ethics Commission over alleged misuse of state funds.

The Quinnipiac poll shows that 74 percent of those polled don’t know enough about him to form an opinion.

Hickenlooper’s relative weakness is shared by the state legislature, which has a Democratic majority in both chambers.

Only 36 percent of respondents approve of how the state legislature has done its job, with 49 percent expressing disapproval. Even in Democratic strongholds like Denver and Boulder, 45 percent disapprove of the legislature’s job performance and 41 percent approve.

Overall, the numbers are reflective of how hard-fought and divisive the legislative session has been, a session in which the Republican minority accused the Democrats of “over-reaching.” The state has seen nonstop controversy over a variety of issues, including gun control, new rights for illegal immigrants, civil unions and other hot-button issues.

Follow Greg on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel