Udall GardnerA CNN/ORC poll has Rep. Cory Gardner up by 4 points over Sen. Mark Udall (50%-46%).  This now makes it nine of the last ten public polls that has Gardner beating Udall, and the polling averages over at Real Clear Politics and Huffington Post has Gardner up by 2 points and 2.9 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, Udall’s campaign has been forced to resort to claiming their internal polling has the race tied—but, what is probably more telling, when they used the “internal polling” card in September, they used it to claim they were leading.  Even their spin is being downgraded.  Over at The New York Times FiveThirtyEight rip-off Upshot Senatorial predictive model, Gardner’s chances to win have grown to their largest since the predictive model started.  The model now has Gardner at 72% chance of beating Udall.  The race certainly isn’t over yet, but any politician would rather be in Gardner’s shoes than Udall’s.

In fact, desperation is starting to leak out from the Udall campaign, as The Washington Post labels Udall’s campaign as “going nuclear.”  We knew Udall was a green through and through, we just didn’t know it was the kind that glows.

Pro tip: if your campaign ever garners the label of “going nuclear,” you ain’t winning.

Shifting over to the Governor’s race, a new poll by Quinnipiac has former Rep. Bob Beauprez up by 4 over Gov. John Hickenlooper (46%-42%).  The narrowing of the race since the last Quinnipiac poll was almost inevitable as Hickenlooper’s allies have gone full “Udall” on Beauprez, resorting to the now “break in case of losing” war-on-women tactic of Democrats.  And, those promises of Hick to not go negative ring as hollow as the wink wink, nudge nudge of Romanoff “technically” not taking PAC money.  Sure, “technically” Hick can still claim he doesn’t do negative ads, but now it just speaks to the shallowness of “Hick Brand™”  A man more determined to not get his hands dirty and damage his brand, rather than actually be a true leader and make tough decisions.

No wonder the Colorado Lefties on twitter have reached a new level of shrillness this past week; they can see all their win bonuses slipping away.  Looks like less Whole Foods and more King Soopers for them in the near future.  How they must dread having to mix with the plebeian crowd again.