More than 300,000 Colorado voters have returned ballots for the Nov. 3 election as of 11:30 Wednesday night — a staggering display of enthusiasm in a state that sends all voters a ballot by mail.
When that latest figure was tabulated by the Secretary of State’s Office, Colorado was 20 days out from the election. Twenty days out from the 2016 election — when Colorado also had universal mail-in voting — 12,141 people had cast ballots, said a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jena Griswold. That’s a 2,377% increase in early turnout this year as compared with 2016, when overall voter turnout far exceeded the national average.
“It’s great for democracy to see so many Coloradans making their voices heard,” Griswold told The Denver Post. “Even with ballots still being mailed this week to registered voters, turnout is 24 times higher than at this point in 2016.”
Politicos in Colorado are floored by these numbers, which Democratic political consultant Craig Hughes described as “bonkers.”
“This appears to be the beginning stage of what we expect to be incredibly high turnout for the November 3rd election,” wrote Ryan Winger of the Republican polling firm Magellan Strategies, based in Boulder County.
There is a clear enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats in early voting, numbers from the Secretary of State’s Office indicate.
Of the 300,795 people who had voted as of late Wednesday, 46% were registered Democrats, who comprise just 30% of total active, registered voters in Colorado and typically vote later than Republicans.
A September poll of registered Colorado voters showed that 87% of Biden supporters were “extremely motivated” to vote, 7% higher than Trump voters here. Polling has also shown Colorado has many more Biden supporters than Trump supporters, as the president has had a consistent double-digit polling deficit in this state.
Republicans make up 27% of the state’s overall voter roll but accounted for only 19% of ballots received by late Wednesday.
“While there is no reason right now to suspect that Republican turnout will be depressed, with every day that goes by that this trend continues it will be worrisome for Republican candidates,” Winger wrote.
Said Hughes, “In 2016, over the first week, more Republicans than Democrats had voted, and yet we (Democrats) weren’t overly concerned about Trump beating Hillary Clinton. What’s a major concern for Republicans now is that there used to be more of them in Colorado. You now have an over-100,000 Democratic voter registration advantage, and you now have this enthusiasm, which puts Republicans in a serious hole.”
He said he would be “very concerned, but not in a panic,” were he a Republican strategist. Concern was evident in a Thursday morning email blast from Arapahoe County GOP Chair Dorothy Gotlieb.
“There is ‘advice’ out there, based on a trumped-up (please forgive) rumor, that Republicans should wait to cast their ballots, and/or should vote in person,” she wrote, adding three times in the email: “DO NOT WAIT! VOTE TODAY – AND ENCOURAGE EVERY REPUBLICAN TO VOTE NOW!”
A 41% plurality of Colorado voters are unaffiliated, and they account for 33% of ballots returned so far.
“The turnout percentage for Unaffiliated voters is actually higher than that for Republicans right now, which compared to past cycles is very unusual,” Magellan’s Winger wrote. “It shows that 2018 was not an anomaly – Colorado’s Unaffiliated voters are engaging and showing up to vote and make their voice heard.”
President Donald Trump has consistently attacked voting by mail as a cause of widespread fraud, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. Hughes said he expects that Republicans in Colorado will still trust mail voting this year, in spite of that. In 2016, more Republicans than Democrats voted by mail nationally.
“The Republican ballots will come in,” Hughes said. “You’re just seeing less enthusiasm for doing so on their side right now.”
Very few people have voted in person in Colorado, as most counties are not yet offering that option. Of the more than 300,000 ballots submitted, just 275 were cast in person, the Secretary of State’s Office reported. All but 13 of those in-person votes are from El Paso or Denver counties.
