Attorney General Phil Weiser has a clear lead over U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the closing days of the Democratic primary for governor, according to a poll from a pro-Weiser group released Thursday.
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However, neither man cracked 50% support, pointing to a still-tight race between the two Democratic stalwarts.
The poll found that 45% of respondents would support Weiser in the election, compared to 36% for Bennet. Nineteen percent said they weren’t sure who they would vote for.
The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday by Public Policy Polling and commissioned by Fighting for Colorado, a state super PAC backing Weiser’s campaign. The firm surveyed 600 likely Democratic voters, with just over a third via landline calls and the rest via text. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The poll lands as more than 14% of active voters — about 579,000 — have already returned their ballots for the June 30 primary as of Thursday morning. About half of the poll’s respondents said they’d returned their ballots.
The poll marks one of the best public showings yet for Weiser in the lightly polled contest. An early June poll by the same firm and also commissioned by the super PAC found Weiser trailing Bennet with 30% support among likely voters to 36% for Bennet, and the remaining 34% unsure.
“This poll makes clear that Coloradans trust Phil’s people-powered campaign — not Michael Bennet’s campaign backed by out-of-state billionaires, corporations, and special interests,” Weiser spokesperson Nate Jackson said in a statement. “Phil is powered by historic grassroots support from Coloradans, who know he will fight every day for their freedoms, a more affordable Colorado, and a brighter future for the next generation.”
Bennet’s campaign, however, criticized the poll for both its late timing and short window when it was actually in the field. Bennet has largely led in the few public polls over the last year or so, benefiting from name recognition after nearly two decades in the U.S. Senate.
“We are confident in our path to victory on Tuesday,” campaign spokesperson Jordan Fuja said in a statement. “The truth is, no serious campaign is staking their strategy on a two-day PPP robo/text poll that didn’t have one live conversation with an actual voter. This is nothing more than a desperate tactic from the Weiser team to distract from the real stakes of this race: a leader like Michael with a clear vision for the future or another status quo politician like Phil.”
The poll shows both men with similar favorability among the primary electorate: 49% had favorable opinions of Weiser, to 48% of Bennet; and 16% and 32%, respectively, had unfavorable opinions of the candidates. More than a third of respondents, 34%, had no opinion of Weiser, compared to 19% for Bennet.
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