Jared Polis is finishing his campaign for governor the way he launched it nearly a year and a half ago – describing a set of ambitious proposals while traveling Colorado.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to move our state forward. And that’s really what this election is all about,” Polis told supporters at a recent rally in Denver. “Do we elect a Donald Trump yes-man, or do we elect somebody who will put Colorado first and move our state forward?”

Polis has led Republican nominee Walker Stapleton in the polls since June, amid what’s shaping up to be a banner midterm for Democrats in a state where voters take a dim view of the Republican president, who reiterated his support for Stapleton this week in a tweet the Polis campaign cheered on social media.

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Barnstorming the state on a two-week bus tour, Polis, a five-term congressman from Boulder, has been accompanied by a revolving cast of Democratic candidates and officials, including lieutenant governor nominee Dianne Primavera, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the man Polis hopes to replace, term-limited Gov. John Hickenlooper.

“Our volunteers have knocked on 1 million doors,” Polis told dozens of cheering supporters at a get-out-the-vote event Friday in Aurora. Using campaign logic, Polis contrasted the figure with the $1 million Republicans have spent on TV ads attacking Polis in the last week.

After almost three weeks of early voting, Republicans and Democrats are returning ballots at nearly identical rates – a far cry from the last midterm election in 2014, when Republicans were leading Democrats by a wide margin at the same point. (That year, Hickenlooper won re-election over GOP challenger Bob Beauprez by 3.5 percentage points.)

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“It just shows that all the negative campaigns and lies on the other side don’t work,” Polis said at the Aurora event. “What matters are not the negative ads, the negative mail. What matters is the hard work on the ground and an exciting message about what Colorado is going to be.”

Stapleton and his allies have hammered Polis as a wild-eyed liberal anxious to impose expensive programs on a more prudent Colorado – including free full-day kindergarten and preschool, universal health care and moving the state toward getting all its energy from renewable sources.

Polis insists that none of his plans “would involve throwing money at projects” and rejects what he terms “misleading or false characterizations by his opponents.” Republicans, he maintains, are trying to scare voters by slapping multi-billion dollar price tags on proposals that bear only a fleeting resemblance to the ones he’s advanced.

“We’re focused on how far we can get with what we have,” Polis told 9News anchor Kyle Clark in a televised interview. (Watch it below.)

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When he talks about “moving forward, not backward” on health care, for instance, Polis says his proposals will “save families money and expand coverage rather than Walker Stapleton’s plan to shrink coverage, throw people off the Medicaid expansion and get rid of the Colorado exchange.”

Polis, a tech entrepreneur who struck it rich in his 20s founding companies during the early days of the Internet and the dot-com boom, has poured more than $22 million of his own money into his campaign.

He’s flooding the airwaves in the final weeks with brisk ads touting his business background – “passing the savings on to you” – and history sponsoring a balanced budget amendment in Congress, earning him praise as a deficit reduction “hero.”

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An ad features veterans singing Polis’ praises for founding Patriot Boot Camp, which trains vets and military spouses to start their own businesses. His work starting nonprofit schools for at-risk and immigrant youth is highlighted in another.

Stapleton and his supporters, in contrast, have spent most of their TV ad budgets attacking Polis, for everything from plotting to turn Colorado into California to endangering the state’s economy with government boondoggles.

Two public opinion surveys released this week echo earlier polls that show Polis ahead of Stapleton – by 5 to 7 percentage points, according to the latest data.

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Addressing supporters at a stop in Denver on the Democrats’ bus tour, Polis warned against complacency.

“That’s all that the polls show,” he said. “They show the support is there for us to win – with a big ol’ asterisk there, and that asterisk is, Do people vote? Will people vote?”

That’s where his campaign’s massive turnout effort – including those million door-knocks – comes in, Polis said.

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“We need to make sure that we talk to everybody that we know, and tell them the historic importance of this election, where Colorado has a choice,” he said.

“They can validate the divisive rhetoric and harmful policies of Donald Trump, or we can elect a governor who will roll up his sleeves and work with both sides to move us forward toward the future – and make the future work for us.”

Bennet sounded a similar note at the rally.

“‘The future is worth the fight,'” he said, quoting a sign held by a supporter in the crowd.

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“I don’t think there’s anything about our president’s policies that suggest he even understands that there’s a future, much less that it deserves a fight. But there is (a future) that deserves a fight – on the environment, on schools, on housing, on health care – and that’s the fight Jared Polis will lead.”

Hickenlooper, fresh off a visit earlier in the week to New Hampshire for his still-officially-hypothetical presidential campaign, told volunteers at the Aurora event Friday that Polis’ experience as an entrepreneur accounts for his “big vision” and ability to “get things done.”

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Then the governor said the current state of the Republican Party – “they don’t want any government, they want government to fail” – reminded him of a story.

“Up in Wyoming – because this wouldn’t happen in Colorado – but up in Wyoming, there’s two storefronts right next to each other,” Hickenlooper said as the crowd started chuckling.

“One was a taxidermist, right? The other one was a veterinarian. And there was a sign between them that said, ‘Either way you get your dog back.’ The Republicans are the taxidermists, right? That’s what we’re getting back is a government that is stuffed and lifeless. Whereas, if you look at what we are doing here – what you all are doing today – is reclaiming democracy.”