A new report on the 2018 midterms in Colorado reads more like a eulogy or obituary for the GOP than a review of an election.
Republican-leaning Magellan Strategies spoke with 500 unaffiliated voters in Colorado for a post-election survey – conducted the two days after the election on Nov. 6 – which reveals why Republicans in the state were over-washed in a blue wave. Per the results, 34 percent of unaffiliated voters said they were less likely to vote for a Republican candidate because of President Trump's influence.
"If Hillary Clinton had been our president, we would not have suffered the losses that we did on Tuesday - without question," Magellan Strategies CEO David Flaherty told Next with Kyle Clark.
Regarding the gubernatorial race, Magellan said voters who supported Republican Candidate Walker Stapleton liked that he is fiscally conservative. In addition to Trump, however, the negatives against Stapleton included multiple references to negative ads and believing he was a liar. One comment even referenced a Truth Test covered by Next about Stapleton claiming to be a fourth-generation Coloradan. We found that claim to be a "stretch."
The numbers indicate that more unaffiliated voters supported Democratic Governor-elect Jared Polis because of his positions on healthcare and education, which surveyors found to be the two most important topics to voters, as well as the environment.
"Immigration is not top of the list among the voters that are going to decide our elections now or moving forward. It's public education, it's mental health, it's healthcare and reducing the cost of healthcare," said Flaherty.
Some of the negatives against Polis included fear that he might raise taxes, battle the oil and gas industry and that he seemed more socialist than Democrat.
Beyond that race, about 45 percent of the unaffiliateds surveyed have a favorable view of the Democratic Party overall, compared to 25 percent of them having a favorable view of the Republican Party.
"If you read the verbatims in our research, you can actually see how voters think about the Republican Party," said Flaherty. "The verbatims in this survey are talking about racism, the party of hate. We're talking about raw, negative emotions that I've never seen before in all my years of doing research, and that is completely attributed to Donald Trump's rhetoric and behavior."
Republicans already know they have an uphill climb ahead. It was one day ago that the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party sent supporters out a frank status update to describe what happened to the state GOP in the 2018 midterms:
"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you," Jeff Hays said, quoting former college football coach Woody Hayes. "If [he] was right, the Colorado Republican Party's soul is spotless."
The Magellan Strategies report suggests Hays' assessment may be spot on, and Republicans could have a hard go of it come 2020. Just more than half of the unaffiliated voters – 55 percent – said they’d vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in the next election. In their analysis, surveyors wrote: “Colorado Republicans should be worried.”
While Colorado won’t decide on a new governor again in 2020, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner is up for re-election.
"If we're just going to stay where we are, and we don't start appealing to younger voters - voters that are 44 and under really - it's going to be very difficult for a Republican two years from now and further out, to be competitive in a statewide election in Colorado because that's where we are, the facts show it,” Flaherty said. "I would just say fewer voters will give him a look, or Cory Gardner's going to have to work harder to separate himself as his own man, and as his own senator, and his own representative for the state."
Colorado's unaffiliated voters came out in record numbers in 2018, and for the first time in this state, they surpassed both Republicans and Democrats in midterm turnout. This is also the first Colorado midterm ever in which Republicans were outvoted.
These were the results as of Tuesday:
- Unaffiliated: 878,360
- Democrat: 849,610
- Republican: 813,644
Flaherty doesn’t believe this is the end of the Republican Party - more like the end of the Republican Party as we know it. Flaherty hopes his fellow Republicans use his survey results as a guidebook.
“Either the GOP in Colorado wakes up and really starts getting with the program and talking to problems that Coloradans want solved, rather than ideological rhetoric or debate, or just - in all honesty - sticking too closely too Donald Trump when he is clearly wrong, offensive, and does nothing but drive voters away from Republican candidates," said Flaherty. "Somebody has to speak to truth, and I think, perhaps, that's why we're doing what we're doing, regardless of the fallout and the outcome."
Magellan conducted their survey by using publicly-available data it gets from the Secretary of State’s Office, as well as information, like a phone number, that various companies may have. Out of the 25,000 voters Magellan contacted, the results came from the 500 who agreed to participate. Flaherty explained the process to us. Watch:
