Why didn’t Colorado Republicans gain more seats in the state’s House and Senate? Dems played defense

Why didn't Colorado Republicans gain more seats in the state Senate and House? While the GOP gained some 680 state legislative seats nationally, the Colorado GOP picked up only one seat in the Senate and six in the House where it just barely gained control. Democrats still are hoping that final vote counts in a couple of very close races will allow them to retake the House. 

The answer appears to be that the left's  "Colorado Model" played a great defensive game. The Model is the Left's well financed machine that funds attacks on Republicans and pays for organizing get-out-the-vote efforts that often win close contests. Because Dan Maes insisted on staying in the gubernatorial race, Republicans were not able to raise enough money that would have paid for strong get-out-the-vote efforts for the Republicans' candidate. Those efforts would have helped GOP legislative candidates. How tea party primary voters crippled the Colorado GOP by nominating Maes this year will be discussed and debated for a long time.

Meanwhile, as David Harsanyi writes, Colorado is a blue state.

1. I’d been thinking the very same thing over the past two days as Harsanyi concluded:  CO is a blue state in the model of Oregon and Washington, both filled with granola crunchies who overreact to social issues, yet contain a bastion of fiscal conservative, self-reliant types.

   And when I say overreact to social issues, as you know I agree on the social issues with you - I just feel not only that the fiscal issues are most important, but that particularly on abortion, the exec and leg branches can’t do much about it at all; it’s primarily a judicial branch issue.

   I’ve been curious what you think is the root of the unexpected debacle, given most of the polls were contra and particularly the Magellan predicion was quite alluring on turnout favoring the GOP.  Did the on the ground get out the vote activities of the Dems win out over the GOP’s?  Were the GOP’s numbers strong, but the Dems stronger?

   Finally, besides Ellen Roberts win over Bruce One-Year in the Colo. Senate, Tim Leonard is leading Polis Dem Jeanne Nicholson in SD 16, with provisionals and mail-ins still to be counted. I am hopeful he will prevail.

   Posted by Laura Victoria  on  11/05/2010  at  07:38 AM

2. Laura, I don’t know the state legislative candidates very well. Nor do I know how much money they raised themselves or how much outside groups spent on their campaigns.

   So it will be interesting to talk to people down the road to get the full story.

   I haven’t talked to Magellan to find out what went wrong with their survey, but it looks like their robo calls didn’t reach the real likely voters. And maybe he over estimated the Republican turnouts and under estimated the Dem turnouts.

   Posted by Donald E. L. Johnson  on  11/05/2010  at  09:47 AM

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