Incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) may have survived that tough primary challenge, but a new poll shows he’s still got an uphill climb ahead of him to retain the Senate seat he was appointed to last year. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of 453 likely voters in Colorado found Republican nominee Ken Buck leading the Senate race 49-40.
There is no previous Reuters/Ipsos survey for direct comparison.
National Democrats hoped that Bennet would beat his Democratic challenger, Andrew Romanoff, because they say Bennet has a better chance of winning the seat he was appointed to after Democrat Ken Salazar resigned to become Secretary of the Interior. On Aug. 10, Bennet handily defeated Romanoff, kicking off a general election fight with Buck, a tea party favorite. The matchup is the one that national Democrats wanted.
Polls so far have shown the Democratic plan for the race has not played out. The TPM Poll Average shows Buck ahead 46.4-42.4.
The trend line shows Buck with the momentum so far, too:
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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