Bennet leads O’Dea in Colorado Senate race: poll

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) holds a comfortable — yet slightly narrower — lead over his Republican rival Joe O’Dea in the Senate race in Colorado, according to a survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill released Tuesday.

Forty-nine percent of respondents classified as very likely voters are backing the Democratic incumbent, according to the poll, which was conducted less than two weeks out from Election Day. O’Dea, meanwhile, is running at 42 percent.

Bennet’s lead isn’t entirely surprising in a state that has moved firmly into Democrats’ corner in recent years. Still, the numbers suggest that O’Dea’s support is growing.

A September Emerson College-The Hill poll found Bennet leading O’Dea 46 percent to 36 percent. That means that over the past month, O’Dea’s support has grown by 6 percentage points to Bennet’s 3 points.

Of course, Bennet is still favored to win reelection this month. Republicans had hoped to bring the Senate race into play, listing it as one of their pickup opportunities in an expanded Senate battlefield.

And O’Dea has certainly made a name for himself, carving out a reputation as one of the only Senate Republican hopefuls willing to openly break with former President Trump. After winning the state’s GOP primary earlier this year, O’Dea sought to distance himself from Trump, saying that the former president shouldn’t seek the White House again in 2024.

At the same time, President Biden’s approval rating in the state remains underwater, with 44 percent giving him positive job reviews and 49 percent disapproving of his tenure in the White House.

Still, a red wave in Colorado doesn’t appear likely. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, currently leads his Republican rival Heidi Ganahl 54 percent to 40 percent, according to the Emerson College-The Hill poll. Since September, Polis has seen only a 1-point decline in support, while Ganahl has improved her standing by 4 points.

The poll surveyed 1,000 very likely voters in Colorado from Oct. 26-29. It has a credibility interval — a metric similar to a poll’s margin of error — of plus or minus 3.02 percentage points.