JOHNSTOWN, Colo.—The cinnamon rolls at Johnson’s Corner restaurant and truck stop are big—really big. So were the hopes of Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer and his supporters Saturday as they met while eating their nearly 2-pound, gooey confections.
“I looked at last night’s numbers and this is a dead-even race,” Schaffer said of his campaign’s polling.
Recent polls have shown Democrat Mark Udall with everything from a double-digit lead to an edge of four percentage points in the race for Colorado’s open Senate seat, being vacated by two-term Republican Wayne Allard.
Schaffer, talking to a crowd of about 50 in a meeting room at the truck stop off Interstate 25 in northern Colorado, said his polling showed about 8 percent of the people still hadn’t decided how to vote in the Senate race on Tuesday.
“It’s just a reminder that the only poll that counts is on Tuesday (Election Day),” Udall said after a rally Sunday for supporters. “We’re taking nothing for granted.”
The mood was upbeat in the room in a Denver-area office building where about 100 supporters and volunteers working for Udall, Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Barack Obama gathered before heading out for door-to-door canvassing. Udall, wearing well-polished black cowboy boots, had spent the morning visiting churches.
“We’re on the cusp of turning this state completely, completely blue,” said Udall, a congressman since 1997.
Most polls showed Obama with a single-digit lead over Republican presidential candidate John McCain in Colorado.
The real goal, Udall said, is “a red, white blue state.” He was fresh off a bus tour of western Colorado where he said he talked to GOP ranchers and out-of-state hunters who were adamant about the need for change in the country’s direction.
Over the weekend, both candidates ranged throughout the mix of rural and urban communities that stretch more than 100 miles along the east face of the Rockies. The race has attracted millions of dollars in advertising by outside groups as Democrats fight to boost their majority in the Senate and Republicans battle to stem losses.
Schaffer and his supporters were far from conceding defeat Saturday despite a tough political climate for Republicans because of President Bush’s low approval ratings and an ailing economy.
Allard, who milled through the restaurant with Schaffer, talking to patrons, said during the rally for supporters that polls showed him losing right before he won his two Senate races.
“There are a lot of polls being run showing Republicans gaining in support,” Allard said.
Schaffer has cast himself as a reformer who kept his promises to fight for lower taxes and a balanced budget when he served in the U.S. House from 1997 to 2003. He was part of the wave of conservative Republicans who aligned themselves with Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America.
Schaffer honored his term-limit pledge, even though, as he has said, Bush asked him to run again.
Udall stands for higher taxes and bureaucracy while he stands for lower taxes and “economic freedom,” Schaffer told the crowd at the restaurant. Schaffer has said he will add to the checks and balance in Congress, especially if Obama wins the presidency.
“It seems that Bob Schaffer is down to the last plank in his platform,” Udall said of his opponent’s argument.
Schaffer prided himself on being a strong partisan while in Congress, and people are tired of the partisanship, Uall added.
“A promise I’ve made is that I’ll work every single day in the U.S. Senate to find partners, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, to move our country forward,” Udall said during a debate last week with Schaffer.
