Republicans Debate on Channel 9

9KUSA held a Republican debate and all the participants scored points, but is Tom Tancredo, the non-participant, the real winner?

Tancredo has refused to debate, claiming that the format leads to arguments among the candidates and just harms the ultimate winner in the general election. Not true so far this year. The candidates have kept their aim mostly at Governor Hickenlooper and the Democrats. More likely, Tancredo assumed he would be the target of most of the attacks as the frontrunner. He also, no doubt, calculated that his voters are going to show up and the debates just help the rest of the field.

Two recent polls show Governor Hickenlooper beating the field, but not reaching 50 percent, except in one poll where he’s matched against Tancredo. Tancredo also has the highest name identification. No candidate gets closer to Hickenlooper than seven points (which is beyond the margin of error).

Possibly the most important statistic in the Quinnipiac poll is the percentage of Republican voters who could not rate the four candidates on a favorability scale. Two-thirds of Republicans were not able to rate their candidates, except Tancredo who could not be rated by only 36 percent of the Republicans in the poll. Obviously, much of the support these candidates received against Hickenlooper was based on partisanship.

Money is going to be important for the June 24 primary, and Bob Beauprez may have an advantage if he wants to self-finance (notice 65% of voters claim to not be aware of him). The debate performance indicated if an experienced, calm adult is the party preference, Beauprez may be the man. However, he still needs to convince the rank and file he can take the battle to an incumbent who has a 7- to 10-point lead against the entire field.