I think reverse coattails from higher-profile Senate race – helps Hick, not Tancredo (b/c not on GOP line) – could be big if CO-GOV is close
I think reverse coattails from higher-profile Senate race – helps Hick, not Tancredo (b/c not on GOP line) – could be big if CO-GOV is close
I think pretty much every voter in Colorado knows who Tancredo is, so I don’t think a coattail effect is going to be much applicable here.
Perhaps, but here’s my thinking. Because of #ColoradoGOPclusterf__k2010, the governor’s race has been treated mostly as a curiosity around here. That’s just now starting to change, with polls showing the race tightening, but it’s a race against time, both for Tancredo supporters trying to convince the faithful that he’s got a legit shot and thus he’s worth their effort, AND for Hickenlooper supporters trying to convince Dems that they actually need to vote for Hick, because otherwise, Tancredo might win. In addition, Hick has pledged to run a totally positive campaign, and Tancredo doesn’t seem to have much money to run negative ads against Hick (I don’t know the fundraising numbers, but I certainly haven’t seen many ads). So that adds to the perception that the governor’s race doesn’t really matter. People know who Hick and Tanc are, but they aren’t really paying attention to the governor’s race.
Meanwhile, we’re being endlessly bombarded with the Buck-Bennet race. Pretty much every commercial break during the local news is completely filled with negative ads reminding us that Ken Buck will take away birth control, refuse to prosecute rapists, and force raped women to have babies… and that Michael Bennet is a brainless shill for President Obama’s Failed Economic PoliciesTM. Everybody is aware of that race, and lots of people have strong opinions on it. In particular, I suspect a lot of Democratic women will go to the polls just to vote for Bennet because Buck is evil — that certainly seems to be what Bennet is trying to achieve, anyway. By the same token, lots of conservatives will go to the polls just to vote for Buck.
Now, like I said, a lot of those voters won’t really be paying attention to the governor’s race. They’re just voting to prevent Mandatory Rape Babies a la Buck or a Socialism-Inspired Great Depression a la Bennet. Once those people get to the polls, though, they’ll probably look at the ballot and say, oh yeah, there’s a governor’s race, too, isn’t there? For the Dems, it’ll be easy: just move one box over and vote for Hick. For Repubs, though, while I’m sure plenty of them will navigate down-ballot to the Tancredo line, I suspect others will either vote for Maes, or see Maes’s name and say, “oh yeah, I remember, that guy’s a douche,” and move on to some other race. For these type of voters, Tancredo may be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
It would have to be probably a less than 1% difference, certainly less than 2%, for this to matter. But if it’s that close, I think it might matter.
If this was a presidential election year, I’d be more inclined to see some significance in that. I think what you’re describing, really, is more the result of Tancredo not being the Republican nominee per se, rather than a coattail issue.