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Poll: Senate candidates Bennet, Glenn not well-known in Colorado

A recent poll in Colorado’s Senate race indicates Republican challenger Darryl Glenn is six points behind Sen. Michael Bennet, and oddly indicates 42 percent of Colorado voters would be less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton if Gov. John Hickenlooper was her vice presidential running mate.

The poll was conducted by Harper Polling, a company that conducts public polls across the nation.

Between July 7 and July 9 Harper Polling called 500 likely Colorado voters on landlines and cellphones.

Of those who responded 46 percent were likely to vote for Bennet, 40 percent for Glenn and 14 percent were undecided.

Brock McCleary, the president of Harper Polling and a former polling director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said what struck him was the lack of name recognition for Colorado’s Democratic incumbent.

Thirty-three percent of respondents had no opinion of Bennet’s image, while 40 percent had a somewhat favorable or very favorable opinion of the candidate.

“I think the surprise was the low name identification with respect to the incumbent senator, which clearly had an impact on the ballot, which is only a 6-point spread,” McCleary said. “It’s a presidential election cycle. Any incumbent who is not well-entrenched is going to find a large segment of the electorate who doesn’t know much about them but will hold their fate in a year like this.”

McCleary said Glenn has an even bigger name recognition gap with 62 percent of voters having no opinion of the candidate. A generic Republican candidate included in the survey polled 3 points higher than Glenn.

“It’s an issue of resources, really,” McCleary said. “The Denver media market is an expensive one and building name identification when you haven’t run statewide before requires a well-funded campaign.”

Glenn does not have a well-funded campaign and likely started July with little in his campaign fund bank account.

The poll has a plus or minus 4.38 percent margin of error.

The poll also indicated Hillary Clinton had more support in Colorado than her presidential opponent Donald Trump. Clinton received about 45 percent of the voters’ support to Trump’s 38 percent; 14 percent said they would vote for someone else and 4 percent were undecided.

McCleary said that mirrors the margin that President Barack Obama won Colorado by in 2012.

Perhaps the oddest polling result, however, asked voters if they would be more or less likely to vote for Clinton if Hickenlooper was the vice presidential candidate.

While 40 percent said they were much more likely or somewhat more likely, 32 percent indicated they were much less likely to vote for Clinton if Hickenlooper were on the ballot with her and another 10 percent were somewhat less likely. Hickenlooper for vice president polled well among Democrats and self-identified “moderate” voters.

Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644

Twitter: @CapitolSchrader

Michael Bennet, left, and Darryl Glenn.

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