Rasmussen’s First Post-Ritter Reaction: McInnis Leads All Three Dem Hopefuls

While Coloradans casually wait to see if Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will use his White House permission slip to run for governor in Bill Ritter’s place (though Marc Ambinder says it’s a no go) — or leave it to Denver mayor John Hickenlooper or someone else to pick up the slack — Rasmussen weighs in (H/T Campaign Spot) with the first hard polling data on likely post-Ritter match-ups for Republican frontrunner Scott McInnis:

McInnis 47, Salazar 41
McInnis 45, Hickenlooper 42
McInnis 47, Romanoff 37

Very Favorable / Very Unfavorable —
McInnis 22 / 11 (+11)
Salazar 31 / 24 (+7)
Hickenlooper 33 / 15 (+18)
Romanoff 12 / 22 (-10)

Only Andrew Romanoff underperforms Bill Ritter’s 8-point deficit in a head-to-head showdown with Scott McInnis. However, 7th District Congressman Ed Perlmutter was not featured in the poll. If for some reason both Ken Salazar and John Hickenlooper take a pass, Colorado Pols believes he would be next in line (and they tend to be right about the state’s Democrat machine).

Of course, if you want to weigh in on any of those issues, now is the time to take the January Survey of Colorado’s Political Temperature.