New polls show trouble for GOP in Colorado — and Trump isn't helping

Two recent statewide polls in Colorado show Trump is unpopular and the wind is at the backs of Democrats heading into the 2020 election, the Colorado Sun reported Thursday.

“I think having President Trump at the top of the ticket is not good for any Republican running,” Ryan Winger, a pollster with the GOP-affiliated Magellan Strategies, told the Sun. Magellan Strategies released a poll last week showing Trump’s disapproval rating in Colorado at a staggering 57%.

That level of disapproval is 1 point worse than what the more Democratically aligned Keating Research found about a month ago. Their poll showed 56% of Coloradans disapproved.

“I think it’s fair to say that things are lining up well for Democrats,” Curtis Hubbard, a researcher who partnered with Keating Research for the June poll, told the Sun.

Trump’s dismal performance in the state could be an anchor weighing down Sen. Cory Gardner, the first-term Republican senator who is up for reelection in 2020. The Keating poll found only 40% of Coloradans approve of his performance, with 39% disapproving.

In January, Gardner already enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s 2020 campaign, which was before special counsel Robert Mueller’s report showed evidence of Trump obstructing justice. In 2016, Gardner refused to endorse Trump, citing the way Trump treated women, but Gardner no longer seems disturbed about that.

Digging in a little deeper, the Keating poll had more bad news for Gardner. The poll finds much more enthusiasm among Democratic voters than Republican voters, which is “the same dynamic that we saw in the lead up to the 2018 midterms in which a wave of Democrat voters propelled Democrats to wins in every statewide race.”

And while the Magellan poll didn’t ask about Gardner specifically, it did find “Colorado voters prefer Democrats to have control of Congress by a 10-point margin, 47% to 37%, over Republicans.”

Both polls predict voter enthusiasm and turnout models favor Democrats across the board.

Further, both polls show Colorado voters relatively content with the direction of the state government, which is controlled by Democrats in both legislative chambers and led by a Democratic governor.

Gardner has long been described as the country’s most vulnerable Republican senator in 2020. A pair of polls from both Democratic and Republican pollsters adds more evidence to that claim.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.