Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Colorado Senate 2008

There already has been a few stories highlighting the coming battle for one of Colorado's two US Senate seats in 2008. Here is how the match is shaping up.

On the Republican side: If Colorado's current senior Senator, Wayne Allard, decides to run again he will not face any significant primary opposition. He has a tiny warchest, less than $125,000. The main action on the Republican side is to ensure that Allard does run again. If Allard decides not to run the primary will be wide open. Early names that have been mentioned are: Governor Bill Owens, former US Representative Scott McInnis (who still has about a million in his campaign account), former US Representative Bob Schaffer and current US Representative Tom Tancredo.

We give an early edge to Allard not running again and to Scott McInnis taking up the Republican flag.

On the Democratic side there is really only one name floating around: US Representative Mark Udall. We don't foresee any real primary competition against him.

Our early overall analysis: Colorado has been trending Democratic over the last four years. A new term has even been coined for these western Democratic voters: Liberaltarians. While Colorado voters have a tendency to split their tickets, we don't think that they will think to themselves "We already have one Democratic Senator, so I'll vote for a Republican." Cast this race as Leans Democrat.