Two new polls out Thursday give Democrat Jared Polis more reason for confidence in the election for Colorado governor, though one suggests a slight tightening in his race against Walker Stapleton.

Less than a week out from Tuesday’s election, the Boulder congressman’s larger margin over the Republican state treasurer — 8 percentage points — comes in the Colorado Poll conducted by a Democratic consortium that includes Telluride-based Keating Research; it found Polis leading 50 percent to 42 percent among 517 likely voters.

Meanwhile, a Republican polling firm that has surveyed the race regularly gives Polis a narrower lead, 45 percent to 40 percent. That 5-point margin in Magellan Strategies’ latest poll, which surveyed 500 likely voters on Monday and Tuesday, compares to a 7-point lead for Polis in Magellan’s last poll, conducted three weeks ago.

In both of the new polls, Polis notched double-digit leads over Stapleton among women, unaffiliated voters and voters in their 40s or younger. Notably, the Magellan poll reported more voters undecided overall (11 percent) than the Colorado Poll (4 percent).

“Despite a tightening of the ballot test, taking everything into consideration, we believe that Jared Polis has the inside track in the remaining week before the election,” said David Flaherty, the Republican founder of Louisville-based Magellan.

The change in Polis’ margin in that poll — he has led 47 percent to 40 percent in two previous Magellan polls — was within the margin of error of the new poll (plus or minus 4.38 percentage points).

But it comes amid an onslaught of TV ads attacking Polis in recent weeks.

Those ads, run by an outside group, are based on a 1999 incident in which Polis physically blocked his personal assistant from leaving his office. She pleaded guilty to stealing documents from him and Polis was cleared, but the ads have emphasized that Polis pushed her. Multiple media fact checks have deemed the ads misleading.

Flaherty said Stapleton remains the clear underdog, given Polis’ consistent leads as well as mail ballot returns that, so far, show registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters outpacing their 2014 midterm turnout. Republicans, while leading slightly in returns through Tuesday, were underperforming significantly compared to the GOP wave election four years ago.

The Democratic pollsters’ survey was conducted between Oct. 25 and Tuesday by Keating, Denver-based OnSight Public Affairs and campaign strategist Jake Martin. Its margin of error was plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

“In 23 years of polling in Colorado, a statewide candidate with this type of 7- to 8-point lead in the polls has never lost the election,” pollster Chris Keating said in the polling memo.

Both polls were conducted using live phone interviews, at least half via cell phones.

Polls’ leads not as different as they seem

Because of differing shares of party affiliations among each poll’s respondents, Magellan’s 5-point margin for Polis is closer than it may appear to the 8-point result in the survey by the Democratic pollsters.

The Keating-OnSight poll’s sample was split evenly between Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters.

But Magellan has weighted its polls so that its samples include 35 percent registered Republicans, 33 percent Democrats and 31 percent unaffiliateds.

Flaherty said Magellan decided to retain the same party weighting for the new poll for comparison’s sake, even though he thinks that Republican-leaning spread looks more optimistic for the GOP than the actual turnout is bearing out.

Other nuggets from the polls:

The polls found limited support for two other candidates: Libertarian Scott Helker, who received 4 percent in the Keating-OnSight poll and 3 percent in the Magellan poll; and Unity Party candidate Bill Hammons, who received 1 percent in each poll.

The Keating-OnSight poll found that 59 percent of its sample had an unfavorable view of President Donald Trump, with 39 percent holding a favorable view of the Republican president.

That poll also found that U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican up for re-election in 2020, had a 42 percent favorability rating, with 43 percent saying they had an unfavorable view. But Gardner’s 71 percent favorability rating among Republican respondents trailed Trump’s 82 percent rating within the same group.

Document: Memo for poll by Magellan Strategies

Document: Memo for Colorado Poll by Keating/OnSight/Martin Campaigns