Colorado Senate Race Wide Open

From PPP...

Michael Bennet's approval rating is just as bad as it was
when we polled Colorado in April but voters in the state don't like any of his possible Republican opponents either, leaving this Senate contest pretty wide open.

38% of voters in the state disapprove of Bennet's job performance so far
with 31% approving. Those numbers are roughly equal to our previous survey which found the numbers at 41% disapproval to 34% approval. There are two primary reasons for Bennet's net negative ratings. The first is that Republicans disapprove (62%) of him more than Democrats approve of him (57%). The second is that he's getting unfavorable reviews from independents, 36% of whom disapprove of him compared to 29% approving.

One piece of good news for Bennet is that he's getting better reviews now
from the key Democratic constituency of Hispanic voters now than he was when we polled the state in April and January. 38% approve of the job he's doing with just 27% disapproving. It had been 41% disapproving and 33% approving earlier, perhaps a reflection of unhappiness that Ken Salazar was not replaced by another Hispanic senator.

Potential Republican opponents Bob Beauprez, Ryan Frazier,
and Ken Buck all get overall negative reviews from voters in
the state as well. 40% have an unfavorable opinion of Beauprez to 30% with a positive one. For Frazier it's 19% negative and 11% favorable and for Buck the numbers are 18% unfavorable and 17% favorable.

In head to head contests Beauprez leads Bennet 42-39, while the incumbent has a 39-35 advantage over Buck and a 38-33 one against Frazier.Bennet's numbers are partially a reflection of the downward turn in Democratic fortunes nationwide over the last few months, as seats that were thought to be safe for 2010 have come into play in conjunction with the decline in Barack Obama's approval rating. It's also a function of the fact that most voters still don't know him very well, something that his prodigious fundraising will be able to rectify in spades next year.

Full results here

First thing first, no one likes any of 'em. All four guys have negative approval. Beauprez obviously showing good numbers from his run in 2006 when he didn't know why he was running. Buck and Frazier and even Bennet are still pretty unknown too, and people are more likely to know politicians if they're mad at them.

This polling is virtually the same as the last time there was polling meaning nothing's changed. After months of campaign, it's still locked. Beauprez edges Bennet, Bennet edges Buck and Frazier.

Still, it's over a year before the general election and anything could happen between now and then, I mean anything. Remember when we all though it was gunna be Giuliani vs Hillary? Or we thought Huckabee wouldn't ever win a state and that Obama would win only about three?

Later this week the Gubernatorial race. Haven't seen those numbers in a while either.