Secretary of State Jena Griswold tried her hand at spinning a significant number of newly registered voters as a result of the debate between former Presidents Trump and Vice President Harris.
From her press release Thursday:
More than 21,000 Coloradans either newly registered to vote or updated their voter registration online the day of the debate and the two days following.
A closer examination of her math shows that 1,000 Coloradans registered to vote during the debate. The numbers are not broken down by registration, but if trends hold, most likely the majority selected not to affiliate with any political party.
Griswold also credits Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris for bringing in an additional 900 registrations, but again those numbers do not include party registration.
The most significant driver for new voter registration seems to have come as Meta pushed a voter registration drive nationwide on all its platforms including Facebook and Instagram, bringing in 12,000 new voters to the state.
Also from her press release:
An additional 11,300 registered to vote or updated their registration on September 17 — National Voter Registration Day. Since the start of September, more than 60,000 Coloradans have either newly registered to vote or updated their voter registration online.
With 3.9 million registered in the state, here’s the latest breakdown by party registration:
- 1,900,268 Unaffiliated (48.6%)
- 1,017,664 Democrats (26.0%)
- 907,509 Republicans (23.2%)
Griswold did not mention whether it is common for voter registration numbers to significantly increase in the weeks before ballots are mailed, but common-sense dictates this would be the case.
Yet Griswold never misses an opportunity to politicize even the most basic aspects of her job, in this case, new voter registrations.