Joe Biden is losing ground in Colorado.
That’s the takeaway from a poll conducted before the president’s bad debate performance that showed him leading Donald Trump by 6 percentage points.
The poll was conducted by Global Strategy Group, a Democratic firm that accurately predicted 2022 election outcomes in Colorado, among 800 registered voters from June 17-24. It had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, meaning Biden’s lead could be as small as 2.5 points or as large as 9.5 points.
That’s much less than the 13.5-point margin he beat Trump by in Colorado in 2020. One reason: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The poll showed the independent presidential candidate capturing 12% of the vote in Colorado, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3% and Cornel West, another independent candidate, at 2%. (Kennedy is slated to appear on Colorado’s ballot as a Libertarian, while West is slated to appear under the Unity Party banner.)
Biden had 42% of the vote, according to the poll, while Trump had 36% and 5% were undecided.
In a two-way race, the poll showed Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points, with 50% of the vote to Trump’s 40%. (Hence the Kennedy-as-spoiler analysis above.)
Whether Kennedy actually gets on Colorado’s ballot remains to be seen. Libertarians are fighting over whether he or the party’s national nominee, Chase Oliver, should get the presidential ballot slot in Colorado in a battle that could end up in court. Kennedy also turned in voter signatures Thursday to appear on Colorado’s ballot as an unaffiliated candidate, so he has an insurance policy assuming his campaign collected a sufficient number.
Kennedy needs to have gathered 1,500 signatures from voters in each of the state’s eight congressional districts to make the ballot. His campaign said it turned in more than 30,000 in total, but it’s unclear if those meet the district requirement. State elections officials have until Aug. 1 to review the signatures.
Again, this poll was conducted before Biden’s poor debate performance on June 27, after which his numbers slipped nationally. It’s fair to assume they slipped in Colorado, too, meaning — at least on paper — that the state appears to be in play.
Andrew Baumann, the Global Strategies Group pollster who conducted the survey, indicated Democrats shouldn’t worry too much.
He said Colorado is “definitely not in play” and that while Biden is underperforming a bit relative to his 2020 margin, “it’s important to note that Trump hasn’t gained vote share, Biden has lost votes to undecideds.” A GSG polling memo also says Biden’s support has dropped among some key subgroups: unaffiliated voters, Denver metro voters, younger voters, and, especially, voters of color.
Baumann also said polls always overtstate support for third-party candidates, but that it’s clear that they will hurt Biden in Colorado. If Kennedy isn’t on the ballot, he predicts Biden runs away with the race again.
Finally, Baumann said while it’s very possible Biden’s numbers have dropped in Colorado after the debate, the impact may be smaller here given that it’s proven to be such an anti-Trump state.
THE DENVER POST: Colorado’s pro-RFK Jr. Libertarians face presidential ballot showdown with national party
X: U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen calls on Joe Biden to step aside
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CORRECTION: The Unaffiliated last week incorrectly reported the name of the Republican El Paso County commissioner running to represent Colorado Senate District 12. He is Stan VanderWerf.
WHAT A SMALLER BIDEN MARGIN OF VICTORY MAY MEAN
Even if the state is not in play, a smaller margin of victory for Biden in Colorado would likely have down-ballot effects.
We’re looking at you, 3rd and 8th congressional districts, as well as all of those Republican-leaning legislative seats Democrats won in 2022.
Forty-two percent of those polled said they had a favorable view of Biden, while 55% said they had an unfavorable view of him. By comparison, 48% said they had a favorable view of Democrats in Colorado, while 42% said they had an unfavorable view of them.
For Trump, 39% of those polled said they had a favorable view of him, while 58% said they had an unfavorable view. Republicans were faring slightly worse, with 38% saying they had a favorable view of them and 51% saying they had an unfavorable view.
Fifty-one percent of those polled said they had a favorable view of Gov. Jared Polis, compared with the 40% who said they had an unfavorable view of him. Fifty-four percent said they approved of the governor’s job performance.
The poll also tested Initiative 50, the property tax measure on the November ballot. After being read the measure’s language, 44% said they would vote no, while 34% said they would vote yes and 22% said they were completely unsure how they would vote on the question.
DENVER POLL
The Colorado Polling Institute this week released the results of a recent poll of Denver voters.
Forty-eight percent of participants said they had a favorable view of Mayor Mike Johnston, while 38% said they had an unfavorable view of him. That’s worse than in August 2023, just after Johnston took office, when 46% said they had a favorable view of him and 22% said they had an unfavorable view.
“Voters have had some time to form some opinions,” said Kevin Ingham, who runs Aspect Strategic, a Democratic firm that conducted the poll alongside New Bridge Strategy, a Republican firm.
Conversely, 50% of those polled said Denver is headed in the right direction, while 46% said it’s on the wrong track. In August 2023, 44% each said the city was headed in the right direction or on the wrong track.
The poll was conducted between June 13 and 18 among 409 registered Denver voters. It had a margin of error of 4.85 percentage points.
AXIOS DENVER: New Denver tax plan will test voters’ appetite for rate hike
YOU HEARD IT HERE
Democrats are battling this year to maintain their supermajority in the House, and it may not be easy given the growing questions about Biden’s mental fitness. If they lose just three seats they won’t have a supermajority anymore.
If McCluskie has concerns about the election, she’s not expressing them. She said she’s “confident our caucus is going to maintain our supermajority.”
JOE BIDEN
Biden is scheduled to hold a fundraiser in Denver on July 28
President Joe Biden is scheduled to return to Denver on July 28 to attend a fundraiser with Gov. Jared Polis.
A flyer for the event says it will be hosted by Democratic mega donor Tim Gill, a Coloradan who made a fortune as a software entrepreneur. Gill’s husband, Scott Miller, was nominated by Biden to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Miller has held the job since 2021.
Biden last visited Colorado in November, when he attended a fundraiser with Polis in Cherry Hills Village and then stopped in Pueblo to tour the CS Wind plant and make remarks. He focused his message during that trip on attacking Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have spent a significant amount of time in Colorado over the past 14 months. Assuming Biden’s Denver fundraiser happens, each will have visited the state at least three times in that span.
Our takeaway: There must be a lot of campaign cash here since, electorally speaking, other states are much more important.
WHAT TO WATCH
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
COLORADO LEGISLATURE
The Colorado House Workplace Harassment Committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to hire a third-party investigator to review a complaint. While the complaint is confidential — including who filed it and against whom it was filed — in order for it to fall under the panel’s purview it must have been lodged against a lawmaker or partisan staffer. The investigation marks just the second time the committee has been convened to review a complaint. The last one, filed last year, ended with no action.
8TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Attack ads against U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, D-Thornton, are mounting in the 8th Congressional District as Republicans seek to dislodge her from the district that spans from Denver’s northeast suburbs along U.S. 85 into Greeley. A new digital ad from the National Republican Congressional Campaign accuses Caraveo of covering up President Joe Biden’s apparent lack of mental fitness. The NRCC didn’t respond to questions about how much it would spend to air the ad, just that it was “more a messaging ad than anything else.” On July 25, American Action Network, a nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors, will begin airing TV ads in the district about immigration.Those ads will air on TV and digital platforms at a cost of about $650,000 through mid-August. Caraveo faces state Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Fort Lupton, in November.
LAUREN BOEBERT
A federal judge Monday dismissed the defamation lawsuit filed by American Muckrakers PAC against U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert after the two sides reached a settlement. The PAC has been a longtime antagonizer of the Republican congresswoman. Details of the settlement weren’t revealed.
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THIS WEEK’S PODCAST: Colorado HOAs will have a tougher time foreclosing on homes
THE NARRATIVE
Another statewide “debrucing” question is on the horizon. Why does this keep happening?
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Colorado lawmakers may need to ask taxpayers for permission to keep millions of dollars in excess revenue generated by a tax that voters recently approved.
This time it’s Proposition FF, the 2022 ballot measure to fund a school meal program. The latest estimates show it may have collected $26 million more than forecast last budget year, which ended June 30.
If those projections hold up, it would mark the third time in three years lawmakers would have to go back to the ballot and ask voters to keep all of the revenue generated by a tax increase they already passed once.
Remember that under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, voters are effectively asked two questions in one: Whether to raise the tax rate, and whether to raise revenue by whatever specific dollar amount those higher taxes are expected to generate.
If the tax hike generates more money than expected, the government has to either give back the difference, or ask voters if it can keep the extra dollars. That’s known as “debrucing,” named after former state Rep. Douglas Bruce, the conservative firebrand behind TABOR.
Before 2023, such ballot questions were rare — the last time it happened was 2015. But now it’s happened two years in a row — and a third question could appear on the November 2025 ballot if current trends continue.
In November, voters agreed to allow the state to spend $24 million in excess nicotine and tobacco taxes, after revenue collections exceeded the forecasts for 2020’s Proposition EE in the state voter guide, known as the Blue Book. Those dollars help to fund preschool programming.
This year, lawmakers referred a measure asking to keep $29 million in extra sports gambling revenue, which is earmarked for water projects.
Next year, funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program could be at stake. Initial estimates from Colorado Legislative Council Staff show Proposition FF — which took away some tax breaks for those making more than $300,000 — generated $127 million for the 2023-24 budget year, blowing past its $101 million estimate. Next year, legislative analysts expect it to grow to $132 million. The governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting expects similar totals.
If the projections hold up, the governor’s office says the tax could generate enough to cover the entire cost of the school meals program — wiping out a funding shortfall that threatened to upend the state budget this spring.
That would be good news for the State Education Fund, which was on tap to plug the shortfall. But it’s also somewhat puzzling news for voters who, for the third year in a row, could be asked to approve a tax increase they already agreed to.
A 50-50 CHANCE OF EXCESS TAXES
Greg Sobetski, the top economist for Colorado Legislative Council Staff, told the Joint Budget Committee last month that it shouldn’t come as a surprise when ballot measures collect more than expected. In reality, there’s usually a 50-50 chance that they will.
Legislative staff forecasts are always the midpoint of a range of possible outcomes. Half the time tax collections should land a little above the estimate, and half of the time they should fall below it.
But, Sobetski said, the dollar amount that the state can collect isn’t necessarily tied to legislative forecasts. To determine whether the state owes taxpayers a refund, the state defers to either the number in the Blue Book or what’s written into the ballot question, whichever is lower. As a result, Sobetski said legislative staff always write the Blue Book to match the ballot question so legislative analysts don’t cause a TABOR refund by being the lower of the two estimates.
That suggests lawmakers could bake in some wiggle room when they send a tax increase to the voters by using a higher forecast in their ballot language.
“My advice to members of the General Assembly is to be cautious about the amount that you put in those ballot questions,” Sobetski told the JBC in June.
But there’s a political downside to that, too. Higher numbers could make the tax hikes look bigger than they are, making voters less likely to approve them. They would also run the risk of overpromising money for popular government programs — like free school meals for kids — that depend on that revenue.
In the face of a potential shortfall, lawmakers earlier this year considered whether to cut back the program to provide meals to fewer kids — a choice no one wanted to make.
“This has been such a roller coaster watching the revenue for Prop. FF and trying to make sure that we are always addressing this responsibly and making sure that program is funded and doing best by our kids,” said JBC Chair Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat.
The Unaffiliated is now in summer mode so that The Colorado Sun politics team can recharge our batteries and dig into some meatier stories over the next few weeks.
Through Labor Day we will publish once a week, on Fridays. We may publish the occasional Tuesday newsletter if there’s news that can’t wait, but typically the summer months are slower for political news.
We’ll be back to our regular twice-a-week frequency as the general election nears. And don’t worry: You can still expect the same amount of exclusive analysis and scoops each week from us in our Friday newsletter.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
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