Americans are recoiling from the Democratic Party, and even in blue states like Colorado, Democrats are feeling the burn.
With Republicans fielding the best candidate for governor they’ve had in a decade – Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer – liberal politicians would be wise to address the root causes of this dissatisfaction publicly, frequently and head-on. The reality is that Americans are struggling — our politics are becoming more violent, everything is more expensive, and the job market is tightening.
After years of enjoying popularity, Colorado’s top Democrats are now showing a remarkable drop in their approval ratings among voters. President Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular in the state, but Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Michael Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper are failing to break a 50% approval rating, meaning more of those asked than not said they were unhappy with the politicians’ work.
These results from a poll conducted in early August of 1,136 registered Colorado voters by Magellan Strategies mirror what we are seeing across the nation. Americans are dissatisfied.
According to a New York Times analysis of available voter registration numbers, the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters across the board and particularly in swing states. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is gaining voters after years of losses.
Part of the shift is voters simply changing their affiliation to unaffiliated, but the Magellan Poll clearly indicates that there is more afoot than voters just looking to participate in open primaries.
Magellan, a conservative-leaning Colorado firm, found that among voters who supported Kamala Harris in 2024, 47% have unfavorable opinions of the Democratic Party.
To be clear, voters who were polled still said they were more likely to support a Democrat for governor next year. Only 38% of those polled said they would likely support a Republican for governor. Kirkmeyer has an uphill battle to be certain, but her opponents are weakened.
We’d hazard a guess that the non-existent Democratic primary in 2023 to challenge a sitting president who was showing cognitive decline while in office is part of the reason voters are upset. It will take time for voters to forgive – and no one will ever forget – the disastrous presidential debate.
But national politics can’t take all the blame.
Gov. Jared Polis has served almost eight years in office and 52% of voters told pollsters that they had an unfavorable opinion of his work, and 35% strongly disapprove. That is softened only by the fact that 56% of voters polled strongly disapproved of the job President Donald Trump is doing, but Colorado has rejected Trump three times in general elections and the Republican Party rejected him in the 2016 caucus.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is doing slightly better with 44% of voters reporting disapproval of him, and U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper was at 49%.
Bennet is going to face Attorney General Phil Weiser in the Democratic Primary for governor. Weiser wasn’t included in the poll and neither were any of the Republican candidates.
The bottom line is that Democrats cannot spend this election talking about Donald Trump, and pretending that voters don’t have real concerns about the governance of both political parties. Voters may still put many or even most Democrats into office, but if the party wants to recover, its top leaders must start this election cycle with something more than fear and loathing.
Coloradans are concerned. The Magellan poll found that 54% of voters anticipate the economy will decline in the next 12 months (with more Democrats expressing this fear than Republicans), a pessimistic view that requires our politicians to articulate a plan for the worst-case scenario.
Similarly, 54% think Colorado is headed in the wrong direction (with more Republicans unhappy than Democrats), and the high cost of living, public safety, and homelessness were mentioned frequently by voters as top concerns, according to Magellan. These issues will only be harder to address given the decline in federal, state and local revenue sources. Our next governor will articulate a feasible plan.
Finally, Democrats will win safe seats in 2026 with their heads in the sand, but if the party wants to gain ground in swing districts, its politicians are going to have to step up to the challenge at hand – restoring faith in and favorability of the party. Can that be done without rehashing the many missteps of the past four years? We would like to see elected officials be accountable and transparent.
But Colorado must move forward, as must the nation.
If Democrats want to stop losing ground, they’ve got to appeal to voters as far more than an alternative to Trump.
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