[Tennessean4Bush]

Any explanations on why it seemed like every pollster and pundit missed Colorado so badly? Did it really break so strongly on election eve? Was there a poll that showed an 8 pt lead for Allard (Wasn't that the final tally)?

[Dems_R_Losers]

President Bush made a big difference in this race, IMO. he campaigned hard for Allard. Allard started out behind in fundraising but caught up. He appeared to be running a not sufficiently aggressive campaign for a while and so it became fashionable to pick him to lose. Republicans had a good turnout operation and the Christian conservative vote in and around Colorado Springs was huge for Allard. I think the GOP turnout was simply much greater than expected in this race.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Polls are out-of-focus snapshots taken at the wrong time. I did hear a few people say things like "I don't like the Republicans, but I don't like the Estate Tax either." Some of these people will jump at the last minute. It's very hard to get a representative sample. Look at the misses by "Portrait of America" in the last election (which may replace the 1936 or 1948 elections as the pollster-boy warning.)

I don't think anyone predicted such a big blowout by Richardson.

[eureka!]

The polls also did not account for a huge GOP GOTV effort in the key states, project called "STOMP"...

[Coop]

Any explanations on why it seemed like every pollster and pundit missed Colorado so badly? Did it really break so strongly on election eve? Was there a poll that showed an 8 pt lead for Allard (Wasn't that the final tally)?

While I worried about the race, I personally always felt Allard would win. His re-elect numbers were weak, yet he led in all but one or two polls where he trailed by a point. Allard never really generated much momentum, but neither did Strickland. And Strickland was already fairly well known, so he didn't have as much room to grow as some challengers. Allard had more money than Strickland, and he had already defeated Strickland in 1996. Colorado leans GOP anyways, and there are even more registered Pubbies now than in '96. And Gov. Owens was very popular and up for re-election. And having the President on his side didn't hurt either. I predicted Allard by 4 points (51-47%). Haven't seen the final margin yet.