This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at rmpbs.org.
Nearly 36% of Colorado’s 4 million active registered voters turned out for last month’s primary election.
That may not seem like a lot, but it’s the second highest primary turnout since 2010. In 2020, when Coloradans were mostly stuck at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, turnout was 45%.
The Secretary of State’s Office finalized the numbers Friday confirming that 1.4 million of the state’s 4 million active registered voters cast valid ballots. Of those, 98% voted using mail ballots.
Brad Jones, a political scientist who is author of the Colorado Political Landscape newsletter, said voters, especially on the Democratic side, had a lot of pent-up frustration with national politics and the Trump administration.
“Just across the ballot, wherever there were chances, places for people to put in somebody who said they were going to be a fighter, voters were eager to be able to do that,” Jones said.
His most recent newsletter noted just over one-third of Denver Democratic primary voters supported Melat Kiros’ successful challenge to U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, Attorney General Phil Weiser over U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s contest and state Sen. Julie Gonzales’ unsuccessful challenge of U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper.
But Colorado’s primary turnout was better than that in many states this year, said Owen Loftus, an unaffiliated voter who created the More than November nonprofit earlier this year to encourage voters to participate in primary elections.
“I think it's heartening that more people did turn out,” Loftus said. “There's still far too few people participating in the most important election in our state.”
Still, the primary turnout since 2010 has been only half or less than half of turnout in general elections. Republican political consultant Kelly Maher said voters will have less of an impact in November than they might have in the primary, especially the Democratic primary.
“There was a lot more advertising, a lot more spending, and a lot more enthusiasm on the Democrat side this year. There are more contested races, and also given the landscape, Democrats are likely to prevail overwhelmingly in November,” she said.
“The place that voters in Colorado could make the biggest impact this year, by virtue of the math and the spending and everything else, was the primary.”
Democratic voter turnout was 48% while Republican turnout was about 41%.
Only 28% of unaffiliated voters, who may select which party to vote for, participated in the primary election — even though they make up more than half of the state’s registered voters.
Unaffiliated voters accounted for 46% of the Democratic ballots and nearly 31% of Republican ballots.
“Our unaffiliateds are not participating for a variety of reasons,” Loftus said. “People aren't reaching out to them. There's confusion about how they can participate or even if they could participate. Those are things that we need to overcome, and things that we can overcome with a little bit of funding and education.”
Maher warned that “people are mostly disgusted with both parties,” both Democrats and Republicans.
“The lesson for all of us is that we're not doing a good job, regardless of which side of the aisle we're on, of representing the majority of the people, and that we are in a situation where they don't want to engage with us.”
