"I do believe that Tom Tancredo is going to win," Flaherty declared. In recent polls, Tancredo has about 73% of Republican voters. Flaherty thinks Tancredo will wind up with over 80% of Republicans. It will be in the low 80s, he said.

 

Tancredo is benefiting from Dan Maes' decision to stay in the race, Flaherty said. Because Maes stayed in the race, Hickenlooper and the Democrats figured that Tancredo and Maes would split the conservatives' and unaffiliated voters' and that they didn't have anything to worry about. If Maes had dropped out, as Tancredo and Republican leaders asked him to, the Democrats would have attacked Tancredo, he said. 

 

Now that Tancredo is poised to win, Flaherty said, it's too late for the Democrats to attack Tancredo. 

 

Ironically, the bitter Maes has stayed in the race to, I think, make sure that Tancredo loses. Now it appears that he's helping Tancredo win. Now, that would be poetic justice.

 

Maes probably will get 6% to 7% of all votes, but it's hard to predict, Flaherty said. Recent polls show Maes getting from 5% to 10% of all votes.

 

The way early voting is going, Flaherty said, 80,000 to 110,000 more Republicans than Democrats will vote on Nov. 2. He's predicting that Republicans will account for 42% of all votes while Democrats "will hang around 35%" and unaffiliated voters will cast about 25% of the votes, down from the high 20s that he had been anticipating. He doesn't know why fewer unaffiliated voters are voting than he expected.

 

Unaffiliated voters are favoring Republicans in the polls he's done for candidates and independent groups. In 2008, Republicans out voted Democrats by about 37,900 voters, and in 2006,  about 45,800 more Republicans than Democrats voted. Democrats won in both 2006 and 2008.

 

Flaherty called the Attorney General's race "done." He said Suthers will beat the Democrat, Stan Garnett, by about 12 percentage points.

 

The Secretary of State race between Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, a Democrat, and Scott Gessler, a Republican is close. A strong GOP turnout and wave should help Gessler.

 

In the Treasurer's race, Democrat Treasurer Cary Kennedy recently sent out an e-mail celebrating a poll that showed her trailing Republican Walker Stapleton by only 3 percentage points, down from 11points in an earlier poll. Flaherty said Kennedy's ads that misleadingly use a 11-year-old driving under the influence (DUI) traffic accident case against Walker Stapleton could hurt him. The Denver Post calls Kennedy's ad  "dishonest."

 

Flaherty is confident in his prediction that the GOP will take the state House and Senate.

 

There are six close races in the Senate and the GOP will pickup four or five, he said. "We feel very good about the 5th, 6th and 20th while the 11th will be a tough, he said. In the 11th, the Democrat, John Morse, and his friends have poured about $1 million into the race, Flaherty noted. He said Senate district 3 in Pueblo is a toss up.

 

The individual state House races are tougher to call because there are so many of them and the races are complex, Flaherty said. "Some races are extremely close," he said, adding, "The turnout data points to the GOP coming out on top."

 

Because Flaherty works for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, he couldn't talk about that race. All polls show that it will be close and most independent analysts think Buck should win the toss up contest.

 

LINKS:

 

Gasp! Pollster says Tancredo wins by 2, by Chuck Plunkett.