The Last Hope for Colorado Democrats Is a Big Turnout

As she has for the last nine days, Jessica Parker awoke before 4 a.m. and drove two hours south to Denver. "I'm on work release," she said. "Sounds like prison, doesn't it?" Parker isn't a felon, but a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines whose union bargained for "work release" to allow members to do campaign work. When Parker arrived in a modest North Denver neighborhood at 7 a.m. this morning, the sun was just rising and frost covered the grass. She had a tablet with a map of 31 households belonging to union members or their families. This was her last push.

If Democrats have a path to hold the Senate, it probably runs through Colorado. Most recent polls aren't promising. The RealClearPolitics polling average has Republican Cory Gardner beating incumbent Sen. Mark Udall by 2.5 points. But Colorado politics are tricky, and the polls have proved to be wrong in the past. In 2010, nearly every one showed Republican Ken Buck beating Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet -- but Bennet eked out a win at 5 a.m. the morning after the election. Democrats credit a late surge of voters, driven by their sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation.