Beauprez has a lot to smile about this morning.

Beauprez has a lot to smile about this morning.

UPDATE: The left has been quick to reject this poll by releasing internal polling (minus any head to head comparison) and crying to their favorite reporters about how the Quinnipiac poll is inaccurate.  It’s worth noting that the left was happy to use the Quinnipiac poll to their liking when it favored their candidate.  But, polls are about trends, and with Hickenlooper beating the Republican candidate by seven points in April, tied with Beauprez in July, and, now, losing to Beauprez, the trendline on these polls are clearly making Democrats nervous.

A Quinnipiac Poll out just this morning shows that Bob Beauprez has widened his lead over Gov. John Hickenlooper among likely voters to 10 points.  Beauprez leads 50 to 40.

Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll offers insight as to why this might be:

“Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is behind the challenger on the key qualities voters want in a leader: honesty, caring and leadership.”

The poll was conducted among 1,211 likely voters using landlines and cell phones from September 10th through 15th.  The margin of error for this poll is +/- 2.8 percentage points.

Here are some other insights from the poll:

  • Beauprez is better liked: 49 – 31 percent have a favorable opinion of Beauprez. Hickenlooper has a negative 43 – 51 percent favorability.
  • Beauprez is killing it with independents: Beauprez leads 89 – 5 percent among Republicans and 50 – 37 percent among independent voters.
  • 77% of likely voters have made up their minds already.
  • Beauprez is leading with the ladies: Hickenlooper gets 46 percent, but Beauprez gets 47 percent among likely female voters.

In fact, this is something that Malloy even pointed out: “The Democrat does not get the traditional strong support from women to offset Bob Beauprez’s army of support from men.”

Here’s what Hickenlooper Chief of Staff Roxane White told The Post:

“John is facing a different political mood in the country, and I think we have voters in Colorado that have a decision to make: Do we want to be more like Colorado, or do we want to be more like D.C.?”

It’s not clear which candidate she is attributing to D.C. since her own boss outsources his decision-making to folks outside of Colorado, like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Interestingly, The Denver Post also points out that this poll diverges from a poll it conducted with SurveyUSA of likely voters.  Here’s the problem.  The Denver Post poll weighted respondents as 33 Republican, 33 Democrat, and 33 Unaffiliated, which is a pretty unserious look at turnout. In years past, the turnout for off-year elections has given Republicans an edge, with unaffiliateds in the high-20s or low-30s.

Either way, this is a terrible spot to be in for Hick going into the last leg of the campaign.  Ballots drop in just under a month.  Tick tock.