TURNOUT: Unaffiliateds Continue to Increase in Number; El Paso Sat This One Out

Nov 14, 2012

Colorado’s Secretary of State released the preliminary voter turnout by party spreadsheet and the biggest non-news is that the ranks of the unaffiliateds voted in higher numbers in 2012 as compared to 2008.  While this year Democrats saw nearly 31,000 fewer voters and Republicans saw nearly 25,000 fewer voters at the polls, nearly 34,000 more unaffiliateds turned in ballots.  The chart below shows how the unaffiliateds bucked the lower-voter-turnout trend this election.

 

The rise in unaffiliated turnout was seen at the county level in every county except for El Paso County, which showed massively lower turnout than in 2008 across the board.  Below is a chart comparing voter turnout between 2008 and 2012 in Colorado’s most populous counties.

The chart that makes some of the shortcomings of the Republicans in this election more apparent; however, is the change in voter turnout by party in the most populous counties.

The most striking change in voter turnout was in El Paso county.  To be fair to El Paso county, its population, often comprised of military families, is certainly more transient.  Nonetheless, Republicans and Democrats both saw significantly fewer voters turn out in 2012, but more Republicans (in terms of raw #s, not percentage of registered voters) than Democrats stayed home this election.  In other words, whereas Democrats were missing 10,544 voters, Republicans were missing 21,581 voters.  One could say that El Paso County has more Republicans, so if the trend is that voter turnout is down, Republicans would have more voters stay home.

Two responses to that line of thinking: 1) unaffiliateds bucked this trend here and over 11,000 more unaffiliateds turned out in 2012 than in 2008 2) theoretical-Republican stronghold El Paso County needs to make up for the vast disparity between votes in Denver County and it has failed miserably.

In 2008, the total votes in Denver County and El Paso County were approximately equal at 278,000 and 276,000, respectively.  In 2012, Denver County turned in approximately 300,000 votes and El Paso County turned in a paltry 235,000 votes.  To break it down further, in 2008, Democrats turned out about 148,000 of their voters in Denver and Republicans turned out 133,000 of its voters, so about a 15,000 vote difference.

In 2012, Denver County Democrats turned out 154,000 of its voters, but El Paso Republicans turned out just 111,000 of its voters, creating a gap of 43,000.  Republicans no longer needed to find 15,000 votes in Colorado, they now needed to find another 45,000 votes statewide to offset Denver.  That’s a very steep uphill climb.

So, who’s ready to play ball in Denver?

19 Comments

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  11. Wayne Williams
    Wayne Williams on December 7, 2012 at 11:00 pm

    Not sure where the data cited in the piece above comes from, but it's simply wrong. There were 273,175 votes in El Paso County for President in 2008, see http://www.elpasoelections.com/2008general/results-text.html, not the 276K listed above. In 2012, there were 290,175 votes for president, see http://www.elpasoelections.com/2012General/results.html, an increase of 17,000 from 2008. I have no idea where the article pulled 235,000 from–we'd reported more than that by 10:19 p.m. on Election Night. All told, Romney (58.91%) was up 10,634 over McCain (58.69%), Obama was up 2,920 from 2008 (but down to 38.54% from 39.86% in 2008). The Libertarian ticket picked up 3,060 votes to reach 4,268 in 2012 (1.47%).

  12. Bill Roy
    Bill Roy on December 4, 2012 at 3:48 am

    The figures in the Coloradopeakpolitics.com article are beyond inaccurate — they are completely wrong, and so are the conclusions drawn by the author.

    El Paso county turned out more than 137K Republicans this election, which exceeded the Republican turnout in 2008 and is a turnout record. That Republican turnout is also more than the next closest county (Jefferson Cty) by nearly 30K votes. El Paso had one of the highest positive turnout deltas in the state. El Paso pulled its weight….

    It's easy to point fingers and sling aspersions after a tough campaign loss, but it's far more productive to make accurate assessments, retool our strategies, and look toward the future in a positive, constructive way.

  13. Kevin Connolly
    Kevin Connolly on November 16, 2012 at 9:32 pm

    How are these numbers treating people registered to other parties? I know several people in El Paso who switched to the Libertarian party after the GOP sold out their most conservative candidate.

  14. Steve Visel
    Steve Visel on November 15, 2012 at 5:05 pm

    I am a registered Republican; I voted Republican in this election and every election since I have lived here, but I don’t identify as Republican. The brand seems tainted and I don’t vote for Rep candidates so much as against Democrat candidates. I guess I’ve been voting for the evil of two lessers.

  15. Alan Weegens
    Alan Weegens on November 15, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    I have reserved my comments on the election, because of depression, and also, waiting till most of the professionals had their say.
    I was at my Mothers house in Il. couple yeras back, and we were discussing politics, and Romney came up in the conversation.
    I heard the Mormons are not Christians crap again.
    To the point to where her husband , 76 years old, and limping because of polio as a child, Christian, got, up, came over and pointed his finger in my chest , to enforce the point.
    I have not seen a exit result, on the number of good, honest, Christian people, that did not vote , because Romney was not a Christian. I mean really folks?
    ggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,,,,,,,,,, saved by grace Christians sometimes, make me feel that is a good thing for them, because if they had to actually, do good works to be considered a good Chrstian , they would fail so badly.

  16. Sarah Marie Arnold
    Sarah Marie Arnold on November 15, 2012 at 6:03 am

    Yeah. Somebody definitely didn't do their job. FAIL.

  17. Steve Collier
    Steve Collier on November 15, 2012 at 5:40 am

    I dunno Matt… I could have sworn we got the Olympic Training Center vote.

  18. Matt Arnold
    Matt Arnold on November 15, 2012 at 5:31 am

    So basically –
    El Paso County GOP "leadership" failure cost Colorado the election?

  19. Cathy Gardino
    Cathy Gardino on November 15, 2012 at 1:43 am

    I bet you'd find those 21,581 Republican votes in the dumpster, shreaded…

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