Obama leads by 3 points in Colorado

PPP's newest Colorado poll finds Barack Obama holding onto a small lead over Mitt Romney, 50/47. That's down from a 51/45 advantage before the first Presidential debate and matches the smallest lead PPP has found for Obama in the state all year.

Romney's seen the same kind of improvement in his image in Colorado that he has throughout the country this month. In September his favorability was a net -6 spread with 45% of voters seeing him favorably to 51% with a negative opinion. That's improved by 5 points to -1 at 48/49. Meanwhile Obama's seen a slight decline in his numbers, with his approval dipping from positive ground at 50/47 to break even at 49/49.

Obama's continuing to lead thanks largely to a 51/42 advantage with independents. There's a large generational gap in Colorado with voters under 65 supporting Obama 51/46, but seniors preferring Romney 55/43. Romney has a narrow advantage with white voters at 50/47, but Obama more than offsets that with big leads among Hispanics (59/38) and other non-white voters (59/29).

Obama has the trust advantage on both the economy (50/46) and Libya (50/44), lending more credence to the thought that Romney botched that issue during the debate on Tuesday.

When Gary Johnson is included in the poll he gets 4% and pulls more from Romney than Obama, pushing the President's lead up to 49/44.

Other notes from Colorado:

-Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot 47/42, including a 46/32 lead with independent voters.

-John Hickenlooper continues to be one of the most popular Governors in the country. 54% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 23% who disapprove, and he leads a generic Republican opponent 56/31. The most impressive thing about his numbers may be that he comes close to breaking even on his approval even with Republican voters at 32/38.

-Because of Hickenlooper's popularity ambitious Republicans might be more inclined to go after Mark Udall in 2014. But his numbers aren't bad either- he leads a generic GOP foe 47/39, including  a 48/27 spread with independents. Udall's approval is 36/29 and Michael Bennet's is 32/31.

Full results here

Comments

[Obama 2012]

I really think the Colorado + Nevada path to 270 has been under-reported.

Obama is going to pull off wins in these two states (he outperformed polls in 2008 by a wide margin) and their 15 EVs are going to make it a helluva lot easier to get to 270.

[ron rosenblith]

How many voters had already voted?

[Rita McClain]

I love how you guys changed your sample from EVEN last time to D+3...it really is telling that you have to skew things to keep Obama barely ahead. Sad!

What your poll really tells us is that Romney is slightly ahead. So thank you for confirming what the rest of us already know.

[zing]

I have a request: include an early voter question in a poll of a state that has no early voting. My theory is that a lot of people are lying about having voted early.