Poll shows Tancredo tied with Dem in Colorado governor's race

A new poll shows the Colorado governor's race in a statistical tie between Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) and former Rep. Tom Tancredo.

The result should concern Democrats who had expected Hickenlooper to coast to victory with the conservative vote split between Tancredo, who's running on the American Constitution Party line, and Republican nominee Dan Maes. 

But Maes has been steadily bleeding support after a series of damaging press reports crippled his candidacy. In the Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies survey released Friday, he took just 9 percent of the vote.

This is the latest survey to show Tancredo closing in on Hickenlooper.

In the Magellan poll, Hickenlooper is out front with 44 percent of the vote, while Tancredo took 43 percent. The automated survey of 1,067 likely Colorado voters, which was conducted Oct. 20, has a margin of error of 3 percent.

Since the firm’s Aug. 25 poll, support for Maes has plummeted from 27 to 9 percent. At the same time, Tancredo’s support has increased from 17 to 43 percent.

The Tancredo camp has been pressuring Maes to drop out and make it a two-person race. His campaign manager, Bay Buchanan, recently called a Maes supporter to say "the time is absolutely now" for Maes to give up, according to The Denver Post.