Update (10/05/2006)
If you want a page that has everything you could want on this race go here. Real Clear Politics has done as good a job as anyone out there looking at this race.
As for this race. The Beauprez campaign cannot seem to get any traction against Ritter. Beauprez cannot even get the GOP voters lined up behind him, nevermind the unaffiliated voters. Don't mind those biased attacks against the Beauprez campaign that come out from the likes of coloradopols which is a liberal attack blog that masquerades as "Politics, News and Inside Information." (Not that we don't like liberal websites, squarestate.net is a daily read, and they state that they are progressives up front.)
The main problem Beauprez has is that this year the public is generally against the Republicans. National scandals and the 6 year political itch give Beauprez a strong headwind that he seems to be making no progress against. Unless his poll numbers can pull to within five points he will lose to Ritter, if it is a blowout the GOP could lose more seats in the State Legislature (which the Democrats already control) and the Democrats could pick up the 7th Congressional District.
Update (8/15/2006)
I've just received a bunch of data from Matrow that has caused us to move this race from Barely GOP to Lean Dem.
The reasons for this are many and varied and others say it better than we can, but this graph of the price for a futures option from Tradesports.com shows it all.
The market has basically shown that the probability of the Bob Beauprez winning the Governor's race has dropped from about 70% in February to about 20% today. Now this market isn't very liquid, but it does have strong predictive powers.
Below you can see how the price on a Ritter to win option has gone up over the same time.
Larry Sabato has decided to put this race into the Leans Democratic category.
A link to Sabato's Crystal Ball and its page devoted to the Colorado Gubernatorial race is available here.
The Cook Political Report has this race listed as a Toss Up. A link to their gubernatorial Race Ratings page is available here.
Here are some recent polls:
Rasmussen Ritter (D) 48% Beauprez (R) 39% Undec. 12% August 14
Mason-Dixon Ritter (D) 42% Beauprez (R) 35% Undec. 23% July 17
Rasmussen Ritter (D) 42% Beauprez (R) 37% Undec. 16% July 10
The guys over at Coloradopols have a page with more polls on it. Click here.
Polling:
8/19-24/2005 Ritter (D) 44% Beauprez 42% Undec. 14%
Update (4/27/06)
We are going to move this race into the Barely GOP category.
The race breaks down like this. It is going to be a Bill Ritter (D) vs. Bob Beauprez (R) matchup.
Here is a graph of how much a option for the GOP winning the Colorado Governor's race is going for on Tradesports.com:
As you can see the market over at Tradesports has moved the probability of the GOP winning Colorado's open Governor's seat from 70% down to 51% today.
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has the race listed as a Toss Up, we think he is hedging, but check his site out.
Update (9/22/05)
Here is a link to a post over at Polstate. It appears that a early poll is out that shows Ritter leading Beauprez. All polling information will be placed at the top of this page.
Original post (8/30/05)
As of right now (over a year out from the election) there seems to only be three big players in the Governor's race.
On the Republican side there is Bob Beauprez and Mark Holtzman.
Bob Beauprez's website is available here. So far he appears like the slight favorite in the race. He has won a straw poll and has better name recognition than Holtzman.
Mark Holtzman's website is available here. While Beauprez seems like a slight favorite right now, Holtzman could easily win. We're waiting for some polls to point the way. Holtzman has the money lead right now, but we are a year out.
Edge...Slight Edge to Beauprez.
On the Democratic side there is only one man standing, former Denver D.A. Bill Ritter.
Ritter is a pro-life Democrat. It has been opined that he should be a strong candidate. If he doesn't have a primary we will get to see. Senator Salazar and Denver Mayor Hickenlooper both have declined to run.
Edge...Ritter.
Our predictions for the general election. Colorado had trended Republican during the late 90s and into the early part of this century, however a Democratic tidal-wave hit Colorado in 2004. Our preliminary prediction is that the Republican candidate has a slight advantage.
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