Colorado voters pessimistic about the economy and elected officials in new poll

This story first appeared at cpr.org

DENVER — Voters in Colorado are deeply divided about the direction of the state, and view Democratic elected officials and President Donald Trump less favorably compared to a year ago, according to a new statewide poll from the Colorado Polling Institute. Voters also broadly support the taxpayers bill of rights, and are concerned about polarization.

The online survey from Republican and Democratic pollsters asked 600 likely voters questions about a variety of issues. The sample was representative of the state across geography, age, education and other demographics. Republicans made up 26% of the sample, 47% were unaffiliated, and 27% were Democrats. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.96 percentage points.

A majority of Colorado voters, 55%, predict that the economy will get worse. That's up from 47% a year ago. They also evenly split on whether the state is heading in the right or wrong trajectory.

“Among those who are comfortable financially, 55% feel that things in the state are headed in the right direction. It's only 41% of those who say they are just getting by or really struggling that feel things are headed in the right direction,” said  Republican Lori Weigel, principal of New Bridge Strategies and one of the pollsters. 

She noted that voters have a diffuse top set of issues they want the state government to address. Cost of living ranked highest at 9%.

“Cost of living has consistently been a concern, but it is just under one in 10 that volunteer that,” said Weigel. 

Other top issues include: 7% Housing Affordability / Lack of Housing, 7% Taxes, 6% Immigration / Illegal Immigration / Migrant Crisis and 6% Homelessness / Encampments. 

Less favorable views of elected officials 

Compared to a similar survey last year, state officials are less popular. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ favorability dropped from 51% to 44%.  Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper's favorability dropped from 49% to 43%. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet’s favorability dropped from 45% to 40%.  

Bennet is running for governor and competing in a Democratic primary race against Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. Weiser bucked the trend - more voters now hold a favorable view of Weiser, 26% compared to 22%. However, 51% still have no opinion of him or haven’t heard of him. Last year, 60% of those who responded didn’t know who Weiser was.

Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who is running for attorney general, also doesn’t have a high name ID, and only 29% view her favorably, down from 30%.

Democratic voters have a more negative view of Democratic leaders - a trend that has been showing up since Trump was reelected, said pollster Kevin Ingham, a principal of Aspect Strategic. 

“We've seen Democrats become quite frustrated with incumbent legislators and executives across the state and across the country,“ he said. 

Ingham said part of that negative shift could be attributed to general economic malaise, but also attitudes about the current administration. 

“That makes us feel like maybe what we're seeing here is more general frustration among the Democratic base towards their party in the way that they are resisting, or not, the Trump administration,” Ingham said.

The pollsters said the president is the single most negatively viewed elected leader – 61% of likely voters viewed Trump negatively, only 37% positively. Republican voters are part of that shift.

“While Democrats and Unaffiliateds have always been deeply skeptical of the president in our polling, this is the first time that we've seen his numbers softening among Republicans,” Ingham said, adding only 11% of Republicans held a negative view of Trump last year.

“Today, 79% of Republicans are positive towards the president, but 19% of voters within his own party view him negatively,” he said. “We've also seen a 15-point drop in the number of Republicans that told us that they have very favorable opinions of Trump over the past year.”

And despite deep partisan differences, Coloradans do agree on a lot of things. Most back the taxpayers' bill of rights and support the idea of having some sort of constraint on taxation. And 84% are very concerned about low snowfall, 89% are very concerned about the risk of wildfires. Voters also worry about polarization. The pollsters said they pulled a question word-for-word from a national poll that was conducted by Fox News in December of last year.

“In that national poll, 82% of all Americans across the country were extremely or very concerned about political divisions. But when we asked that same question here at home, Coloradans were actually slightly more likely to be concerned, 88% were extremely or very concerned, which is about six points more than Americans overall,” Ingham said.