Early Polling for Senate

In the first poll that I've seen on the US Senate race, Pete Coors gets 48% of the vote, and Ken Salazar gets 47%. The poll of 622 likely voters was conducted by Survey USA.

The poll also shows that the Presidential race is a dead heat at this point, with both candidates getting 47% of the vote.

These numbers don't add up, to me. . .especially the second one. I know that everybody thinks this may be a battleground state this year, but I just don't see it that way. That the Presidential race is even in this poll indicates to me a 4-6 point discrepancy from reality in favor of John Kerry. Which, given the internals, seems to also point to a 4-6 point lead for Pete Coors.

Follow up that intuition with a reminder of how wrong the polls were about the GOP primary, and I think this bodes very well for Pete Coors.

Follow THAT up with a look at the SUSA methodology, and you find that they seem to have overpolled Democrats by a decent margin: this poll consisted of 35% Rep, 32% Dem, and 32% Independents. In a state where voter registration splits along lines closer to 36% GOP, 33% Ind and 30% Dem, Kerry/Salazar probably picked up a few points in the methodology.

cross-posted at Best Destiny