Democratic Governor Bill Ritter remains widely popular among Coloradans, but the state’s nine electoral votes could go to either party’s candidate in the 2008 presidential race, according to a poll released today by RBI Strategies & Research.
Five hundred likely voters were asked which candidate they would vote for if the election were held today. The survey found Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani edging out Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton 50 percent to 44 percent. And Colorado voters said they would choose Guiliani over Democrat Barack Obama by just one percentage point, which is well within the margin of error. But Clinton and Obama did better pitted against Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The survey found Clinton leading the former Massachusetts governor 48 percent to 42 percent. Obama does even better with 50 percent to Romney’s 37 percent.
RBI Strategies also found the national candidates have high name recognition in Colorado. Clinton leads the pack with 95 percent of Coloradans recognizing her name. Eighty-nine percent of voters recognize Obama and Giuliani, and 67 percent recognize Romney.
But all four of the candidates struggle with unfavorable impressions among Colorado voters. More than half of Coloradans surveyed had a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable view of Clinton. The other three candidates all had unfavorable ratings in the 30-40 percent range.
But just 18 percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable impression of Gov. Ritter, and only 8 percent view him very unfavorably.
