Udall up 1 in internal poll

Democrats have said that the polls are underestimating Udall.

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall’s pollster has the Democrat leading Republican Cory Gardner by 1 point in a survey taken this week, pushing back on public polls that put Gardner in the lead but which Democrats say underestimate the role of Hispanic voters.

The Udall internal poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Keating Research, which polls for Udall as well as Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. The survey, given first to POLITICO, shows Udall leading Gardner, 45 percent to 44 percent, well within the margin of error but still enough to give some hope to Democrats watching the critical Senate race.

For weeks, public polls have shown Gardner building a consistent, mid-single-digit lead over Udall. But Democrats have said that the polls are underestimating their candidate and that the race is neck and neck. Their argument: Pollsters do a poor job interviewing Latino voters, especially Spanish speakers who don’t have landlines, thus undercounting that voting bloc.

( POLITICO’s 2014 race ratings)

And because every voter is receiving a ballot in the mail this year, the first midterm election in which that’s the case, Democrats argue that voters who in the past who haven’t voted in midterms — a group that traditionally leans Democratic — will return ballots this year.

The poll surveyed 1,005 likely voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. It projects a Republican-leaning electorate: Republican registrants outnumber registered Democrats in the sample by 5 points. It found that 5 percent of likely voters prefer another candidate besides Udall or Gardner, and that 6 percent are undecided.

The survey was released just hours after Quinnipiac University released a poll showing Gardner’s lead at 5 points, statistically unchanged from his 6-point lead last week. And Suffolk University released a poll on Wednesday, commissioned by USA Today, that showed Gardner with a 7-point lead.

Gardner has led Udall in the last 7 independent live-caller polls. But polling in Colorado has underestimated Democratic performance in recent elections.

President Barack Obama led GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney by 1.5 points in the final RealClearPolitics average in 2012, but he won the state by 5 points. In 2010, the final RCP average showed Republican Ken Buck 3 points ahead of Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet; Bennet won by 2 points. The same year, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper had a 4-point edge in the final RCP average but beat former Rep. Tom Tancredo by 14 points.