New poll puts Killin ahead of Crank in Colorado race

Jessica Killin is leading Jeff Crank. That’s the headline from a new poll, and it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has watched this race unfold.

The Colorado Sun reported Thursday that a survey conducted Oct. 14-18 by Global Strategy Group puts the Democrat at 46% and the Republican incumbent at 44%. The margin of error is 4.4 points. In plain English, the race is a coin flip.

Killin’s campaign commissioned the poll. They shared it with The Colorado Sun first. That’s standard practice, but it matters here because the numbers are tight enough that a slight shift in undecided voters will decide the outcome. Ten percent of the 500 likely voters polled said they hadn’t picked a candidate yet.

Read that again. One in ten people who are going to vote haven’t decided. With two weeks left, that is a massive pool of swing voters.

The 5th Congressional District has never elected a Democrat. It was drawn in the 1970s and centers on Colorado Springs. In 2024, Crank won by 14 points. President Donald Trump carried El Paso County by about 10 points that same year. The political gravity of this valley has always pulled hard to the right. For a Democrat to stand within striking distance of that incumbent is a seismic shift, even if the race ends in a Republican win.

The money trail backs up the intensity. More than $6 million has been spent on this contest, according to a Colorado Sun analysis and OpenSecrets. That’s a lot of cash for a district that usually sees less competition. Both parties are treating this as a must-win.

In the four-way race, which includes American Constitution Party’s Christopher Mitchell and Libertarian Mark Elworth Jr., Killin holds a wider lead. She sits at 43% to Crank’s 38%. Mitchell is at 4% and Elworth at 3%.

Global Strategy Group noted in a memo that third-party candidates usually poll higher than they perform on Election Day. They don’t expect Mitchell and Elworth to combine for 7% of the actual vote. But their presence on the ballot clearly hurts Crank. They are siphoning votes that would otherwise go to the Republican.

The pollsters point to two factors driving Killin’s competitiveness: Trump’s unpopularity and her support among unaffiliated voters. Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of this district’s electorate. They are not locked into a party line. They look at the candidate, the issues, and the local context.

Killin’s own campaign released a poll in July showing her down by just one point, with 11% of voters undecided. That survey had a 4.6-point margin of error. So, technically, the race was tied then, too. She has maintained that proximity since summer.

Crank’s team hasn’t released a counter-poll yet. They’re likely watching the same data. The silence from the Republican side is telling. When a race is this close, incumbents usually lean on their name recognition and war chest to push for a comfortable margin. Crank has spent heavily, but he hasn’t bought enough distance to feel safe.

The 5th District is a bellwether for the entire Western Slope and Front Range. If Democrats can win here, they have cracked a code that has eluded them for decades. If they lose by five points, it’s still a win in terms of narrative momentum.

The undecided voters are the key. They aren’t deciding based on party loyalty. They’re deciding based on who they think can get things done in Washington. That’s a dangerous place for an incumbent to be when the national mood is sour.

Killin is in Colorado Springs right now, holding news conferences and knocking on doors. Crank is doing the same. The difference is that Killin’s message resonates with the unaffiliated bloc that has grown in this district. She is telling them their votes matter, not just to the party, but to their local economy and their daily lives.

This isn’t a race about ideology anymore. It’s a race about relevance. And right now, the Democrat is more relevant to the people who live in this valley than the man currently sitting in her seat.

The final count will tell us who wins. But the poll tells us something else: this district is no longer a sure thing for either party. That’s the real story.