Explanations of Ken Salazar’s Victory

Plausible – These factors had a significant effect on the race outcome, as exit polls showed 1/5 of Colorado voters most concerned with political experience, and a growing trend of national concern about candidate values. These also happened to be Coors two weakest areas.

• Experience
  • Two terms as Colorado Attorney General versus Coors being a political neophyte.
  • “Two-thirds of voters who wanted a candidate with the right experience picked Salazar” (Associated Press 2004).
• Values – “Cone”
• Populist – Man of the people, and personal ties to state.
• "Independence, common sense and fiscal moderation" (Glazer 2004).
• Tenets of family and faith - Tradition

Implausible – These factors appear to have had minimal or no effect on the outcome, despite appearing advantageous to Salazar.

• Financial Advantage
  • Salazar raised $9.8 million to Coors’ $7.8 million.
  • Minimal effect - Both candidates had high levels of name recognition, and equally ample advertisement time (Crummy 2004).
• Hispanic Background
• Salazar never openly promoted this facet, avoided being viewed as a “high-profile voice for Hispanics nationwide” (Soraghan 2004).
• Garnered Salazar ¾ of the votes from Colorado’s 17% Hispanic population – A small group compared to the 71% white population.

Candidate Principles

The majority of political commentators agree the Salazar campaign presented a broad, more unified campaign against Coors for the Colorado Senate. His campaign message, professing traditional values, morality, and independence from partisan/interest group influences, contrasts with Coors’ typical conservative policies, perceived status as a supporter of big-business, and lack of direct experience. One Salazar ad from October, “Agree”, hammered proposed tax breaks for the wealthy and Coors’ fiscal irresponsibility, and contrasted Salazar’s moderate stances. Salazar emphasized every voter’s concerns would be his utmost priority. Indeed, results showed enough “Republicans, moderates, Hispanics and self-described born-again Christians who voted for Bush split their ticket to send Salazar to the Senate.” (Kohler 2004).

In regards to consistency within the campaigns, Salazar’s message appeared far more comprehensive, cohesive, and dependable throughout. Whereas Coors extolled classic conservative policies and used frequent attack ads, Salazar continually emphasized his prior experience, charisma, and political independence, through informative personal ads like “Cone”, and negative comparisons against Coors, i.e. “Unbelievable”. Utilizing a consistent but aggressive advertising strategy throughout his campaign, Salazar successfully bucked the 2004 GOP trend. Coors’ actions unfortunately only responded to Salazar, and increased attacks contrasted heavily with the charismatic and efficacious image the Salazar campaign produced. With exit polls showing 1/5 of voters concerned about political experience (Tsai 2004), and the growing importance of candidate values, Salazar’s effective comparisons were a catalyst to victory. Indeed, many analysts consider the prime imperative factor in success to be Salazar’s refusal to “concede the values terrain to Republicans” (Kohler 2004).

 

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