Morning polls, and lots of them: Colorado is a toss-up

• Colorado's Senate seat: Definitely a toss-up

We had seen some polls starting in September showing Mark Udall and Bob Shaffer in a toss-up in the open Colorado Senate seat; but most of them were internal polls, so I had left the race ranked "lean take-over" in my Senate rankings. But the latest poll from Rasmussen makes it more difficult to do so: Shaffer gets 42% and Udall 41%.

The SUSA poll from November 5th had Udall up 48% to 41% but there is now too much evidence that Bob Shaffer is keeping things much more competitive than expected in Colorado. Given what happened in 2006, where relatively unknown Democrat Ritter broke ahead of GOP star Beauprez early and never looked back, most people were expecting the same thing to happen here -- but it looks like the GOP is getting a break in the state and has a real chance of holding it. The question is: will they put choose to fight here when they might have so many other endangered seats to protect?

• Rasmussen polls Arizona, Colorado and Kansas's general election

Rasmussen also came out with some presidential polls from three states that Bush won comfortably in 2004. Republicans look to be ahead in all three -- though Clinton gets decent showings:

• In Colorado, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani beat Hillary Clinton 44% to 40%.
• Hillary is behind Mike Huckabee 42% to 41% but she leads Mitt Romney 43% to 40%.

• In Arizona, McCain's home state, he crushes all three Democrats: 57% to 34% against Clinton, 55% to 33% against Obama, and 56% to 30% against Edwards.
• Clinton is a bit stronger against other GOPers, though she still laggs behind: 47% to 38% against Giuliani, 45% to 41% against Romney.

• Finally, Kansas, a state Bush won with 62% in 2004. Clinton is distanced, but she keeps all Republicans but McCain who leads her 55% to 32%.
• Giuliani is ahead 49% to 36%, Romney 47% to 35%, and Huckabee 47% to 38%.

Another poll from Kansas released a week ago showed Democrats a bit more competitive, but the bottom line was the same: McCain crushed both Obama and Clinton, but Giuliani barely mustered a 5% lead against both -- and Clinton and Obama both led against Romney.

Clearly these 3 polls have no particular good news for Clinton, but they at least reinforce the fact that she would in no way be destroyed in those red states the NYT claims she would drown in.

• California's initiative could pass

SUSA asked voters in California whether all of CA's 55 votes should go to the winner, or whether they should be divided between different candidates in a new poll released yesterday. 35% said winner-take-all, and 47% answered divided. This certainly suggests that there is the potential that the electoral vote initiative prepared by GOP activists could pass.

But, the poll is also certainly not bad news for Democrats. SUSA did not ask this in the form of electoral intentions on an initiative; it was asked as a policy question. The "yes" has to be strongly above 50% from the start in polling of referendums for the initiative to be able to pass; that is even more true when the poll only asks it as a principle. When voters have to look at a specific proposal, the "no" goes up significantly. In 2005, California voters had to decide whether to give the redistricting process to independent judges rather than to the legislature. While most agreed with the principle, the measure was likely perceived to have the potential to hurt Democrats -- and it failed.