Midweek Race Update.

With only a fortnight to go before the election here is the skinny on Colorado's biggest political races.

Governor: Real Clear Politics has this race listed as Leans Democrat. We think that Beauprez (R) has at best a 5-10% chance of winning this race. The RCP poll average shows Ritter (D) with a 10.6% lead in the polls. We list this race as Likely Dem.

Other Statewide: NO Changes. A few polls are out, if we see Beauprez running over 15 points behind Ritter we may have to reconsider some of these races.

CO-7: The race for Bob Beauprez's open Congress seat is really the best race in Colorado. Real Clear Politics has this race listed as Leans Democrat. We agree. There is just too great a political headwind for Rick O'Donnell (R) to overcome as of right now. However, if you look at the poll numbers you can see that Ed Perlmutter's (D) lead in the polls has decreased from about 10% in September to 5.7% today. The most recent RD Strategies poll has the race tied at 47-47. Word on the political grapevine is that internal Perlmutter polling has the race tied also. This race is shaping up to be another down to the wire repeat of 2002, where Beauprez beat Mike Feely by 121 votes. We are very close to moving this race to Toss Up if we see a few more close polls and the polling average goes down below 5%.

CO-4: Marilyn Musgrave (R) will beat Angie Paccione (D). Every year a handful of Democratic Billionqires throw millions into beating Musgrave. Paccione, with her bankruptcy's intimate details splashed across the airwaves isn't the candidate to do it. Real Clear Politics has this race listed as #28 on their House List. Musgrave's impressive polling numbers have us listing this race as Likely GOP. Note to the Billionaires, find a Salazar or a Ritter and you can win this seat, make sure they don't have bounced checks for pizza listed in a bankruptcy.

CO-5: The newspapers have wasted a great deal of ink on this race. Lamborn (R) has pulled into a double digit lead over his Democratic opponent. This race is over. List it as Safe GOP.

No other changes in the other Colorado House Seats. Degette (D) will win in CO-1. Udall (D) will win in CO-2. Salazar (D) will win in CO-3. Tancredo (R) will win in CO-6.

We will add links to all state-wide races over the next week.

Tomorrow we will add an update to our State House page modeled after our State Senate page.

We won't be doing any predictions on the state-wide Referenda.