Is Scott Tipton in Trouble?

The Denver Post reported on October 12 that Republican Congressman Scott Tipton is in a “toss-up” race according to FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s political rating website. Silver must see a massive blue wave that is going to help Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush. No polls have been published, and Tipton’s re-election track record is impressive.

Rep. Scott Tipton | Post Independent

Tipton has won against well-funded opponents by 15 percentage points or more. In 2016, while Donald Trump was winning the district by 196,000 votes, Tipton won by 204,000. The extra 8,000 voters were mostly in Pueblo County, which Trump won by 600 votes and Tipton carried by 9,000. He won his Western Slope base, Mesa County, by 66 percent.

I told Anna Staver, the Denver Post reporter, that I appreciated her story, but short of an extraordinary event, a PhD in sociology from Steamboat Springs, was going to be a hard sell in many parts of the district, but especially Pueblo.