U.S. Sen.-elect Mark Udall (D-Eldorado Springs) beat Republican opponent Bob Schaffer by 10.31 percentage points, according to Colorado Secretary of State election statistics released this week.

That's the largest margin of victory for a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Colorado since Gary Hart won by almost 18 percentage points in 1974, the Rocky Mountain News' Lynn Bartels is reporting.

Colorado Republican Party Chair and Schaffer manager Dick Wadhams told the News he wasn't surprised by Udall's victory margin.

"I've always said we haven't seen anything like 1974 -- when the playing fields were so heavily tilted to Democrats -- until 2008," he said, according to the News.

But Udall's manager, Mike Melanson, told the News that while Udall was helped by a national pro-Democratic trend, other factors were at work as well.

"We had a candidate who cared about Western values, not social issues," he said to the News.