Poll: Colorado voters don’t like Trump, Democrats lead Tancredo in gubernatorial match-ups
All four of the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidates are leading Republican Tom Tancredo at the same time President Donald Trump’s approval rating is in the dumps with Colorado voters, according to a new poll from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling.
The survey, released Monday from the North Carolina-based polling firm, finds unaffiliated voters in Colorado – a little over one-third of the total – disapprove of Trump by a 2-to-1 margin, with 58 percent giving the president thumbs down while only 29 percent say they approve of his job performance.
Overall, Trump’s approval rating is 36 percent, with 56 percent of voters disapproving of him. Among Republicans, 19 percent of voters rate Trump poorly.
Tancredo, a former five-term congressman mounting his third campaign as governor, was tabbed by PPP as the early frontrunner for the GOP nomination and trails the four Democrats by between 4 and 8 points. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis holds the widest lead, with the support of 46 percent of voters to Tancredo’s 38 percent. Former State Treasurer Cary Kennedy has nearly as large a lead over Tancredo, 45 percent to 38 percent.
Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne leads Tancredo by 5 points, 43-38, and former state Sen. Mike Johnston is ahead by 4 points, 43-39.
The survey was conducted Dec. 4 and 5 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percent, the pollsters said.
The pollsters found Democrats are more unified around most of their gubernatorial candidates than Republicans are around Tancredo, with Polis, Kennedy and Lynne doing 3 points better with members of their own party than Tancredo does with his.
The PPP poll was conducted for RBI Strategies and Research Inc., a leading Democratic consulting firm. RBI works for Polis, but the Polis campaign wasn’t involved in this survey, the campaign said.
A Polis campaign spokeswoman nonetheless cheered the results.
“Jared has a bold pragmatic vision for Colorado’s future, and that vision is resonating with voters from across the state,” said Mara Sheldon in a statement to Colorado Politics. She said Polis is putting together a winning coalition of Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters ahead of next year’s election.
A spokesman for Tancredo didn’t respond to a request for comment.
According to the data gurus at FiveThirtyEight, PPP gets a B-plus for its polling and has correctly called 82 percent of the hundreds of races it’s polled.
Tancredo faces a number of prominent opponents in the Republican gubernatorial primary, including State Treasure Walker Stapleton, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, former investment banker Doug Robinson, entrepreneur and former state lawmaker Victor Mitchell, Larimer County Commissioner Lew Gaiter III, former Denver Trump campaign chairman Steve Barlock, former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez and activist Jim Rundberg.
Other Democrats in the running for governor include businessman Noel Ginsburg and Erik Underwood.

