New York Times
By Jack Healy
November 2, 2014
MANITOU
SPRINGS, Colo. — It was warm and sunny and smelled of cinnamon-orange
tea inside a roadside cafe here in the mountains, but as a dozen
Democrats waited for Senator Mark Udall’s campaign bus to arrive for a
last-minute pep rally, the air was laced with dread.
In
the final polls before Election Day, Mr. Udall was trailing his
Republican challenger, Representative Cory Gardner. Early voter returns
tracking
Colorado’s first major election run entirely through mail-in ballots
showed that Republicans had turned in 104,000 more ballots than
Democrats, though they were hoping to close the gap.
Democrats
had spent the campaign assailing Mr. Gardner’s positions on abortion
and birth control, trying to paint him as a Cro-Magnon opponent
of women’s reproductive rights — was their strategy failing them?
The
race for an open Senate seat in Georgia, which pits Michelle Nunn, a
Democrat, against David Perdue, a Republican, is one of many that remain
tight and could decide which party controls the chamber next year.
“I’m
really worried about Gardner and Udall,” said Michael Merrifield, a
Democrat running for a State Senate seat, who attended the Udall rally.
“I’ve even had Democrats say to me, ‘I’m just tired of hearing about
the women’s issue.’ ”
“I live in a Democratic district,” said Alma Cremonesi, a property manager in nearby Colorado Springs. “They’re not voting.”
Ms.
Cremonesi said she had a thick stack of papers with the names and
contact information of hundreds of likely Democratic voters — the fruits
of sophisticated voter turnout operations that in recent years have
helped push Democrats over the top here and in tight elections across
the country. There are about 600 registered Democrats in her precinct,
and Ms. Cremonesi said her job was to reach the
400 who had not yet mailed in their ballots. “It was really
overwhelming,” she said.
Years
of Republican stumbles, combined with booming growth along the diverse
and increasingly urban Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, have
helped Democrats turn this state’s political roster as blue as the
cloudless sky on this autumn morning. Democrats control both Senate
seats and the governor’s mansion, and have majorities in both chambers
of the state legislature. But this year, Republicans
believe they can ride a wave of voter discontent — with new gun-control
laws, health care reform and an uneven economic recovery — back into
power.
“Let’s
claw back that lost territory,” Bob Beauprez, the Republican hoping to
unseat Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, said at a rally last week. “Let’s
make Colorado a red state again.”
As
the campaign closes, Democrats are still trying to convince voters that
Mr. Gardner is more conservative than the earnest, grinning Republican
who has lofted ahead in polls and won an endorsement from The Denver
Post. Speaking to students on the campus of Colorado College, in
Colorado Springs, Mr. Udall pointed out that Mr. Gardner opposes
same-sex marriage, and said Mr. Gardner’s positions on climate
change, renewable energy and college loans showed no vision for the
future.
As
he does at many stops, Mr. Udall brought up his passion for mountain
climbing to describe what has become a bitter, high-spending race. “You
don’t schmooze your way up a mountain,” he said. “You don’t climb it by
accident. You don’t trash-talk your way up a mountain. You just go
climb it.”
The
airwaves are a blizzard of Senate campaign ads — more than 55,000 have
aired since January 2013, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.
High-powered proxies are flying in to rouse the faithful. Bill Clinton,
Michelle Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have come
out for Mr. Udall. Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, and Gov.
Chris Christie of New Jersey are stumping for
Republicans.
Last
week, dozens of Republican volunteers packed Mr. Gardner’s campaign
offices in the college towns of Boulder and Fort Collins to get a
handshake
or selfie with the amped-up candidate. Spotting a boy in a Denver
Broncos football jersey, Mr. Gardner whipped out his cellphone and
showed him a photo of John Elway, the Broncos’ general manager and Hall
of Fame quarterback, who has donated to Mr. Gardner’s
campaign.
The
boy’s father, Dave Holdbrook, a truck driver who has been on disability
for several years after a job-related injury, said he had already
mailed in his ballot for Mr. Gardner.
“I’m
really concerned about what’s going to happen with Obamacare,” he said.
“Spending’s just out of control, and Udall’s lined up with Obama
100 percent of the way.”
Mr.
Gardner, pivoting between reporters, voters and volunteers, offered a
rapid-fire recitation of his case against the Democrats: Mr. Udall
is a “social-issues warrior” who does not represent the entire state’s
values. The economic recovery may have cut unemployment to 4.7 percent
in Colorado, but it has left too many people behind, especially in
cities like Pueblo and Colorado Springs. Government
is choking off small businesses. Coloradans are working harder and
harder and falling further behind. People in much of the state feel they
have been forgotten. “There should never be a forgotten Colorado,” Mr.
Gardner said.
Outside
his Boulder office, a group of students supporting immigration reform
lined up to heckle Mr. Gardner about his opposition to granting
citizenship to undocumented immigrants. Republican
volunteers faced them down, shouting: “Udall lies!” and “Detect!
Detain! Deport!”
Mr. Gardner had long since left, but the two sides kept yelling at each other as the sun sank behind the mountains.
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