Colorado Senate race.

New poll shows Hickenlooper would have large lead in primary if he joined field looking to defeat Sen. Cory Gardner.

If former Gov. John Hickenlooper runs for U.S. Senate, he will immediately have a large lead over current front-runners in the Democratic field, according to a new poll.

Six hundred likely Democratic primary voters in the state were polled and 61% preferred Hickenlooper, compared to 10% for Mike Johnston and 8% for Andrew Romanoff. Fifteen percent were undecided and 6% favored Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who said Friday that she isn’t running in 2020.

The poll was conducted July 25-28 by the Garin-HartYang Research Group, which has a B+ pollster rating from FiveThirtyEight. The poll was conducted on behalf of a national Democratic group involved in Senate races. It has a 4% margin of error.

“Governor Hickenlooper is personally popular among likely Democratic primary voters, with 77 percent of them saying they would have a favorable reaction if he decided to enter the Senate race,” wrote Democratic pollster Geoff Garin in a memo accompanying the poll. Nine percent of those surveyed would have an unfavorable reaction to Hickenlooper’s entry.

“Governor Hickenlooper’s massive lead … is a function first and foremost of his personal popularity,” Garin wrote. “Additionally, primary voters see Hickenlooper as the best candidate to defeat Republican Senator Cory Gardner and help Democrats win a majority in the U.S. Senate, which the poll shows is a key priority for primary voters.”

The poll asked Coloradans about four current or possible candidates in a Democratic primary race that currently has 11 competitors. Johnston, a former state senator, and Romanoff, a former state House speaker, have led in the scant polling conducted so far.

Hickenlooper is currently running for president, not Senate, and has shrugged off suggestions he challenge Gardner, R-Yuma, but has not ruled it out entirely. Though Hickenlooper has said he isn’t cut out to be a senator, some advisers have

urged him to switch to the Senate race.

Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign, reached in Iowa over the weekend, declined to comment on the Senate poll. So, too, did Johnston’s campaign.

“We’re going to win this race by giving voters something to fight for: a Green New Deal, Medicare for all, an economy that works for everyone,” Romanoff said Sunday. “Coloradans are eager to flip this seat not just from red to blue, but from paralysis to progress.”

The poll is a snapshot of the Senate primary race as it would stand if Hickenlooper enters, not a predictor of its final outcome. Hickenlooper has relatively little experience running in tough Democratic primaries, like the crowded Senate race, where Democratic candidates have spent months on the campaign trail raising millions of dollars and racking up hundreds of endorsements.

But no one in the Democratic field can match Hickenlooper’s name recognition and 61% of participants in the Garin-HartYang poll said he gives Democrats their best chance of beating Gardner next year. Most of those polled said finding a candidate who can beat Gardner is more important than choosing the candidate they’re most ideologically aligned with.

“We pressure-tested support for Governor Hickenlooper by reading respondents potential criticisms of him, pulling no punches in the process, as well as providing potential criticisms about each of the other candidates,” Garin wrote, without specifying what those criticisms were.

“One key finding emerged: The attacks on Hickenlooper do very little to reduce support for him or alter the fundamental dynamic of the race,” the pollster added. “In the final trial heat, a clear majority of 58 percent continue to support Hickenlooper, while no other candidate receives more than 10 percent support.” «FROM 2A