A Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday has Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a statistical tie for Colorado’s nine electoral votes. This is a drastic shift from the last time Quinnipiac surveyed the Centennial State, an August poll where Clinton led 41% – 33%.
The poll, which included 644 likely Colorado voters, showed Clinton with 44% in Colorado to Trump’s 42%. Third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein registered 10% and 2%, respectively. When the third party candidates were stripped out of the question, Clinton and Trump each received 47% of those polled. Hey, Republicans, time to board the Trump Train.
Colorado’s battleground status was affirmed by Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, stating “Once a red state, headed towards blue, you can’t get more purple than a tie, and that’s where Colorado is as election day approaches.”
Diving into the numbers a bit, it’s interesting to note that Clinton leads with women by just six points. In the past, the Democratic candidate has a larger edge among women. This is likely due to two factors – 1) The “War on Women” schtick that Democrats love to trot out for elections is growing tiresome for women. 2) Even women don’t find Clinton trustworthy or voteworthy for that matter. This is a big problem for Clinton in the Centennial State.
Here’s the terrible news for Clinton. Trump leads among independent voters 43% to 33%. That’s really the most important voting block in the state. Additionally, while 93% of Democrats are voting for Clinton, just 84% of Republicans are voting for Trump. Did we mention that Republicans need to board the Trump Train?
The truth is that if we get stuck with Clinton, it’s our own damn fault. Trump may not be your favorite candidate, but Gary Johnson can’t hold a conversation about foreign policy and is getting 16% of the vote. All aboard!
This landline and cell phone survey was conducted from September 13 – 21, 2016 throughout Colorado. Responses are reported for 644 likely voters with a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.9 percentage points.