• Original Reporting
  • References

The Trust Project

Original Reporting This article contains firsthand information gathered by reporters. This includes directly interviewing sources and analyzing primary source documents.
References This article includes a list of source material, including documents and people, so you can follow the story further.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, left, speaks with CBS4's Shaun Boyd, center, and Walker Stapleton before the television news station's debate, in partnership with The Colorado Sun, on Friday, Oct. 5, 2018. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)

The governor’s race in Colorado is the top-of-ticket contest in the 2018 election.

The Colorado Sun is tracking the publicly available polling in the race between Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Walker Stapleton. 

Here’s how the polls break down:

And here’s the same data presented another way.

Check back for updates as new numbers come available.

About the polls and methodology

1. Strategies 360 is a Democratic political firm in Colorado that conducted the poll on behalf of the Service Employees International Union. Note: It was conducted during the gubernatorial primaries and asked voters about a hypothetical matchup between Jared Polis and Walker Stapleton. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 4.4% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: B

2. Public Policy Polling is a Democratic firm based in North Carolina that uses automated dialing, or robo-polling. The poll was conducted on behalf of the Democratic Party of Colorado. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 4% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: B

3. SSRS conducted the poll for the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Colorado Health Foundation. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 3% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: A-

4. Magellan Strategies is a Republican firm and Keating Research is a Democratic firm. Both are based in Colorado. The poll was conducted on behalf of Healthier Colorado, an advocacy organization. Read more about the poll. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 4% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: None

5. Magellan Strategies is a Republican firm based in Colorado. The poll of likely voters was conducted using the voter registration file with half of the respondents reached via cell phone. The firm is not engaged in the governor’s race. Read more about the poll. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 4.4% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: C+

6. YouGov is an online survey firm hired by the American Politics Research Lab at the University of Colorado. The online survey can be less reliable than other polls. This is not weighted to the 2018 election — but rather Colorado demographics in 2016. The entire poll and survey questions were not released. And the question about the governor’s race did not allow for respondents to pick undecided. Link to some poll data. Margin of Error: 3.5% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating: B

7. KOM represents the collective Keating Research-OnSight Public Affairs-Martin Campaigns, all based in Colorado. The firms represent Democratic clients. This poll reflects a prediction of even turnout between the two major parties. It reached 61 percent of respondents by cellphone and 39 percent by land-line. The universe of likely voters came from  those who voted in the 2014, 2016 or 2017 November elections. Read more about the poll. Margin of Error: 4.3% FiveThirtyEight pollster rating (for Keating): B

8. Magellan Strategies is a Republican firm based in Colorado. The poll of likely voters was conducted using the voter registration file with half of the respondents reached via cell phone. The firm is not engaged in the governor’s race. Read more about the poll. Link to poll data. Margin of Error: 4.4% FiveThirtyEight pollster ratingC+

☀ OUR RECOMMENDATIONS

    John Frank is a former Colorado Sun staff writer. He left the publication in January 2021.