The Denver Gazette reports that unaffiliated voters now make up more than half of Colorado’s registered electorate, and for the first time, more primary ballots are going to voters without a party affiliation than to registered Democrats or Republicans. The article says Colorado began allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in primaries in 2018 after voters approved the reform in 2016. Small housekeeping note: the article refers to “Proposition 1088,” but Colorado’s unaffiliated primary reform was Proposition 108.
That is Colorado’s political reality check. The biggest “party” in the state is now people who looked at both parties and said, “No thanks, I’ll sit over here with the adults.” Unaffiliated voters are not a curiosity anymore. They are the battlefield, the referee, and increasingly the landlord. Parties that treat them like tourists in primary season deserve the eviction notice.
The Bullet Point Brief
- More than two million Colorado voters are registered unaffiliated, and unaffiliated voters now make up more than half the registered electorate. That is not a trend. That is voters clearing their throats with a bullhorn.
- Because unaffiliated voters can participate in primaries, party insiders have less control over who gets through the gate. Good. Democracy should occasionally inconvenience the people who think the clubhouse belongs to them.
- The Gazette notes unaffiliated voters do not vote as one bloc. Some lean left, some lean right, some are fed up, and some just want to avoid meetings run by people with lanyards.
- Researchers told the Gazette unaffiliated voters can be less politically engaged and may respond to name recognition, advertising, personal story, and values-based messaging. In other words, lazy candidates cannot just yell at their base and call it a strategy anymore.
- Both parties love “democracy” right up until the wrong people get a ballot. Then suddenly voter participation becomes a constitutional crisis with consultant invoices.
My Bottom Line
Colorado candidates who ignore unaffiliated voters are campaigning like it is still 2004. It is not. The old game of winning the base, surviving the primary, and pretending normal people show up only in November is getting harder to play.
That is mostly healthy. It forces candidates to persuade people who have not stapled a donkey or elephant to their forehead. It punishes yard-sign theology. It makes candidates explain themselves to voters who are skeptical of both parties and tired of being treated like an afterthought.
But let’s not get misty-eyed and pretend unaffiliated means moderate, wise, or magically above politics. It does not. Unaffiliated voters are a mixed crowd. Some are ideological. Some are practical. Some are mad. Some are busy. Some just refuse to wear either party brand in public, which is becoming one of the more understandable lifestyle choices in Colorado.
The party machines created this reality by becoming brands people do not want to wear. So here is the lesson: persuade or lose. Talk to voters like adults or get evicted by the people sitting over there with no party registration and increasingly all the leverage.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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