“Colorado is the first ‘purple’ state where we’ve found a plurality of voters in support of gay marriage,” said Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen. “47% of voters think it should be legal to only 43% who believe it should be illegal. For the most part PPP’s state by state gay marriage polling has only found deep blue states in favor of it.”

When you expand the discussion to civil unions, 76 percent of voters support some form of legal recognition for gay couples to only 23 percent who think there shouldn’t be any at all. Even among Republicans, 60 percent support either gay marriage or civil unions, the poll revealed.

Previous polling in Colorado has also shown support for marriage equality.

Colorado’s legislature debated a civil unions bill earlier this year, and while there was evidence the bill would have passed if allowed to come to a full vote in the GOP-controlled House, the bill was assigned to a committee dominated by conservative Republicans and never made it to the floor for a vote.

In September, the last time PPP polled in Colorado, Perry led Romney 31-18. A Bloomberg poll released at about the same time also had Perry leading in Colorado. Gingrich was considered a fringe candidate at that time.

The polling firm noted that Gingrich seems to have picked up virtually all of Herman Cain’s supporters.

“There’s no one left for conservatives to go to but Gingrich, and he’s proving stronger so far than any of the previous flavors of the month,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It looks like it’s down to him and Romney.”

Of course, 66 percent of the likely Republican voters surveyed said their choice was not yet locked in stone. Interestingly, though, Gingrich was also named by more people as their second choice than any other candidate, with 18 percent picking him second. Overall, 55 percent of Colorado Republicans picked him first or second.

Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

Among those surveyed by TIME who were familiar with Occupy Wall Street, sweeping majorities agreed with the movement’s grievance that the gap between rich and poor has grown too large, including 85% of households making under $50,000 per year and 65% of those making more than $100,000 annually. Almost three-quarters of households earning up to $100,000 backed the contention that the rich should pay more taxes. Even 52% of households making more than $100,000 per year agreed. Seventy-three percent support a surtax on millionaires to help close the federal deficit, a provision Senate Democrats recently tacked onto Obama’s proposal to put the GOP in the uncomfortable position of opposing it.

More details on the TIME poll here.

A United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll surveyed 1,007 adults between Oct. 13-16 also found broad support for taxing the rich and sympathy for Occupy Wall St.

Matthew Cooper of the National Journal reports:

When it comes to those Wall Street protests, there’s also a populist streak: Remarkably, nearly one-third of Republicans—31 percent—completely or mostly agree with their aims. The sour economy has sparked some class resentments in unexpected places, it seems. Those stirrings are unlikely to come to fruition in this divided Congress, but there’s no indication they’re going away anytime soon.

The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, found that 61 percent of voters support an amendment “defining marriage as between a man and a woman.” Only 34 percent said they were against the amendment.

The issue will be on the ballot during the primary in May.

The poll, released Wednesday, also found that 51 percent voters support legal recognition for same-sex couples. Only 22 percent support marriage rights for same-sex couples, while 29 percent supported civil unions. The amendment would ban both marriage and civil unions.

PPP noted that it was the wording of the ballot question that influenced voters:

This is really a classic example of how small differences in poll question wording can lead to huge differences in how people respond. Last month we asked the following question “State legislators have proposed an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution that would prohibit the recognition of marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples. If the election was held today,would you vote for or against this amendment?” When you ask it that way only 30% of voters are supportive and 55% are opposed. Voters are against ‘prohibiting’ recognition for gay couples. But if you word it in such a way that all you’re doing is defining marriage as between one man and one woman, voters are ok with that. You’re asking about the same thing in both cases, but the semantics make a huge difference and Republicans clearly know what they’re doing with the language that’s on the ballot.

Hoekstra, a Holland resident who served 18 years in the U.S. House before his unsuccessful run for governor last year, was chosen by 51 percent of likely GOP primary voters, according to the Sept. 14-19 poll of 600 likely voters.
“Pete Hoekstra has more votes that each of his six potential competitors combined,” said MRG President Tom Shields.

Detroit charter school founder Clark Durant was Hoekstra’s closest competitor with 3 percent. Former Kent County Probate Judge Randy Hekman was chosen by 2 percent along with Midland resident Gary Glenn and Detroiter Scotty Boman. Thirty-nine percent of the likely GOP voters were undecided.

This is not surprising. Hoekstra’s name recognition, after being elected to many terms as a congressman and running for governor last year, is far higher than any of the other candidates.

PPP compiled the results from national polling in March, April and May. The findings come on the heels of four national polls showing the majority of the American public is in support of gay marriage for the first time.

The poll asked Republicans, “Which of the following best describes your opinion on gay marriage: gay couples should be allowed to legally marry, or gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not legally marry, or there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship?” Twelve percent said that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, 39 percent said they should be allowed civil unions, and 48 percent said that gay couples should have no legal rights. That means 51 percent of Republicans polled support relationship rights for same-sex couples.

Eighty-nine percent of liberal Republicans support either gay marriage (48 percent) or civil unions (41 percent). Fifty-seven percent of conservative Republicans said there should be no rights for same-sex couples. Still, 42 percent said there should be civil unions (35 percent) or full marriage (7 percent) for gay couples. That trend was almost identical among those that identify with the tea party.

Young Republicans were much more likely to support rights for same-sex couples. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 56 percent supported either same-sex marriage or civil unions; among 30- to 45-year-olds, that number was 54 percent; 50 percent for 46- to 65-year-olds, and 48 percent for those over 65.

Republicans in the Midwest and the South were more likely to oppose rights for same-sex couples at 49 percent and 54 percent, respectively.

And the less money a family makes the more likely they were to oppose rights for same-sex couples. Fifty-seven percent of those making less than $30,000 a year opposed any rights for same-sex couples, while only 33 percent of those making more than $100,000 supported a complete ban on any rights. Thirty percent of those under $30,000 supported civil unions or same-sex marriage, while 66 percent of those making more than $100,000 support it.

With the increasing trend of state legislatures imposing more restrictions on abortion — in some instances criminalizing the practice after 20 weeks — and many anti-abortion rights groups in the debate increasingly appealing to a younger demographic with an uptick in social-media-savvy, youth-led initiatives, the findings on the surface might appear surprising.

In 2009, Pew Research polling showed that 46 percent of Americans favored legal abortions in most or all cases, compared to 44 percent against — a pretty even split. In the summer of 2010, the field was more divided, with pro-abortion rights supporters tilting the balance in their favor with 50 percent versus 44 percent opposed to legalizing abortion in or all in most cases.

Unsurprisingly, the divide tends to run along party lines — 65 percent of Democrats favoring legal abortion versus 34 percent of Republicans against abortion. About 58 percent of independents said they favored legal abortion in all or most cases, according to the Pew survey.

Among Catholics, support for legal abortions has increased slightly: 52 percent, compared with 47 percent in 2010. Evangelical Protestants, at 64 percent, continue to the be the most opposed to legalized abortion than any other religious group.

Last year, a Gallup Poll showed that the views on abortion were shifting to the anti-abortion-rights side, with data demonstrating that 47 percent of Americans identified themselves as “pro-life” vs. 45 percent who identified as “pro-choice.” Notably, the Gallup Poll found that ideology among the 18-29 set had increased toward pro-choice, from 42 percent in 2007-2008 to 47 percent in 2009-2010.

O’Donnell was added after her victory and spoke for about 20 minutes.

“The stimulus spent a trillion dollars on a Keynesian fantasy,” she said. “Then they started talking about Obamacare and the bailouts, bailing out one industry after another,” the social conservative activist said.

“The conservative movement was told to curl up in a fetal position for eight years … well how things have changed,” she said. Her rhetoric was often against the “elite”: “The elite don’t get us — they call us wacky, they call us wingnuts, but we call us ‘we the people’!” She continued later, “the ruling elites may try to be our master … but we say, ‘You’re not the boss of me!’”

She had some one-liners that the crowd loved: “They [government] will buy your teenage daughter an abortion, but not a sugary soda in a school’s vending machine.” Or, she mentioned the “green police” in Alexandria, Va., putting “cameras in your recycling bins.”

She compared her movement to the “chosen people of Israel” and added, “it is almost like we’re in constitutional repentance.” She also opposed extending unemployment benefits, mocking the current Congress: “They say the best way to job is to endlessly extend unemployment benefits!”

The number of reporters in the press area approximately doubled before she spoke at about 3:20 p.m. After her speech, international and national anchors from FOX and ABC like Greta Van Susteren and Jake Tapper (and dozens of other reporters) waited for a chance to talk to her outside the ballroom, but she never appeared. The master of ceremonies asked for a prayer for Christine O’Donnell to protect her from “whatever you see” in the media, who will “attack” her. Or, as she said in her speech, “will they attack us … smear our records … is it worth it? Yes!”

The instant celebrity and conservatism of O’Donnell beg comparisons to the woman who robocalled for her, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. (Indeed, it was rumored that Palin might be the surprise guest of the afternoon — however, she was in Iowa.)

But does it translate to votes? The polls say no, with her trailing New Castle County Executive Chris Coons by 11 to 16 points. That didn’t matter to most of the speakers. Tea party organizer Amy Kremer said, “She’s not a good ol’ boy — she can beat Chris Coons.” Rick Santorum, when asked by a reporter whether she could win, said, “Of course she can. Have you seen the polls?”

But polls didn’t matter today. The results of the election are six weeks away. It was all celebrity and enthusiasm. In the words of O’Donnell, “We will be resisted and we must resist!”

This post originally appeared in The American Independent.