UPDATED: New Ballot Issue Polls

Ballot measure campaigns to enact a statewide domestic partnership law and to mandate that 65% of school funds are used for “instruction” are going down to the wire.  Other ballot measures are clearly leaning towards passage or failure according to recent polls.

The Rocky Mountain News has released its latest polls of state ballot issues, one of the last insights we’ll receive before the election is over Tuesday night.  Conventional wisdom is that measures with less than 50% support are likely to fail.In trouble:

Referendum I (Domestic Partnerships): 47-49

This was within the margin of error.

On track to fail are:

Amendment 40 (Judicial Term Limits): 38-54
Amendment 44 (Marijuana Possession): 34-61

On track to pass are:

Amendment 41 (Gifts To Goverment Officials): 60-30
Amendment 42 (Minimum Wage): 53-42
Amendment 43 (Marriage Definition): 53-43


9News/Survey USA has also released new ballot issue polling results:

Amendent 42 (Minimum Wage): 44-36
Amendent 43 (Marriage): 40-41
Amendment 44 (Marijuana): 36-51
Referendum K (Immigration Lawsuit v. Feds): 26-26

The new 9News/SurveyUSA poll shows Amendment 43 in considerably more trouble than the Rocky Mountain News poll, confirms that Amendment 44 is on the path to defeat, and also does not bode well for Referendum K, since even a light no bias among undecided voters could sink it.  It seems slightly less upbeat than the news about Amendment 42, but this may be a product of the survey’s more stern language.

Previous polls this election season have shown that Amendment 38 (Petitions) is likely to fail, while Amendment 39 (65% Solution, Hardcore) is leading in the polls, but seven percentage points below the critical 50% support mark.  Previous polls that looked at both Amendment 39 and Referendum J (two version of the 65% of school spending on instruction idea) have shown Referendum J with significantly more support than Amendment 39.

The new Rocky Mountain News poll was taken October 28-30 of 500 likely Colorado voters.  The margin of sampling error was +/- 4.38.  About 38% of those polled had already voted and were offering reports of how they voted.

The new 9News/Survey USA poll was conducted 10/30/06 through 11/1/06 and is based on 661 likely voters.  The sample was 37% Democratic, 38% Republican and 25% Independent.  The Survey USA poll asked if you were certain to vote for or against a measure, with all other responses viewed as undecided.