Unaffiliated voters may not be that different than Democrats and Republicans after all.
Despite being able to vote in their first primary election, unaffiliated voters seemed to have rubber stamped the frontrunners for Governor.
Republican Walker Stapleton and Democrat Jared Polis are the nominees for Governor.
Prior to this year, only registered Republicans and registered Democrats could vote in primaries. In 2016, voters passed Proposition 108, allowing unaffiliated voters to participate, but only for one party or the other.
The Secretary of State's Office determined that unaffiliated voters would get two ballots, one for Republicans and one for Democrats. Voters could only return one of those two ballots for their vote to count.
Based on voter turnout for Tuesday's primary election, this is what the map would have looked like if only Democrats and Republicans participated. Darker red means more Republicans voted in those counties, the darker the blue, the more Democrats voted in those counties.
When we add in the unaffiliated voters, based on which ballot they turned in, the map doesn't really change all that much. You can see that in this map:
We don't know who the unaffiliated voters voted for, but if we take out the Democrats and Republicans from the map, and leave only the unaffiliated voters, we see which side they preferred to vote with:
As of Thursday afternoon, 53 percent of unaffiliated voters turned in a Democrat ballot. Only 32 percent turned in a Republican ballot. There are still 14 percent of unaffiliated ballots still being sorted and counted.
Another interesting map is the statewide election results for Walker Stapleton in 2014 compared to the presidential map of 2016.
In 2014, Stapleton was re-elected State Treasurer with support from swing counties like Jefferson, Arapahoe and Larimer.
During his primary campaign, he tied himself to President Trump in campaign ads, debates and speeches. His ads made sure voters knew he supported the President's tax plan and supported the President on his immigration policy.
In the 2016 map, the majority of voters in Jefferson, Arapahoe and Larimer counties swung blue and did not support Trump.
After his victory peech on Tuesday night, we asked Stapleton if he's in danger of alienating the voters he needs to win a statewide race.
"I hope not because I have independent credibility as somebody who's already won two statewide races, and I intend to win a third," said Stapleton.
