101614 Gardner Ahead

Republican candidate poised to capture Colorado senate seat, fends off hit piece, pulls ahead in
polls

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., continues to lead embattled Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., in
the polls, a new Quinnipiac survey released Thursday showing the Republican challenger pulling
ahead of the Democratic incumbent 47-41 percent.

This latest polls means that Gardner has now led in eight of the last nine surveys examining the
critical and hard fought U.S. Senate race in Colorado.

The Quinnipiac survey, which was conducted from Oct. 3-13, polled 988 likely voters in the
Centennial State.

Considering that Udall has made womens health issues the centerpiece of his campaign,
attacking Gardner at every turn for being supposedly anti-woman, the following data point from
Quinnipiac is worth noting: [W]omen back Udall over Gardner 49 40 percent This compares
to last months results, with women going 46 percent for Udall and 43 percent for Gardner.

Men back the Republican over the Democrat 53 34 percent, the report added. Gardner gets
42 percent of independent voters to Udalls 39 percent.

Eighty-seven percent of polled voters say theyve already made up their mind who theyre going
to vote for, and only 12 percent say the candidates still time for the candidates to change some
minds.

With 19 days to go, can U.S. Sen. Mark Udall close a 6 percentage point gap in this marquee
race that could tip the Senate to the GOP, or will U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner prevail? assistant
director of the Quinnipiac University poll said in a statement. There is no significant movement in
the race, but a 6-point gap is more interesting than an 8-point gap. Lets see what the next survey
shows.

The latest survey showing Gardners apparent dominance over Udall comes just hours after
Deadspin, a sports blog, published a story accusing the Republican congressman of lying about
playing football in high school.

Moments after publishing the story, Gardners campaign and the Denver Post produced evidence
contradicting the claim. Even more damaging, Chuck Pfalmer, the source cited in the Deadspin
story, contradicted the blogs central claim.

Deadspin has since published an update to what definitely appears to be a phony story:

Reached Wednesday night at his home, Chuck Pfalmer, longtime stats keeper for
Gardner's alma mater, Yuma High School, and a primary source for the story, told me:
"Cory did play football for three years" in high school, and that his records show that
Gardner spent his junior year "on varsity." During a lengthy conversation about Yuma
High football on Tuesday, Pfalmer repeatedly said Gardner had not played football at the
school.