{"id":1381603,"date":"2018-12-09T20:52:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T03:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/hillman-column-tough-choices-ahead-for-colorado-republicans\/"},"modified":"2018-12-09T20:52:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T03:52:00","slug":"hillman-column-tough-choices-ahead-for-colorado-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/hillman-column-tough-choices-ahead-for-colorado-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillman column: Tough choices ahead for Colorado Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mark Hillman<\/a><\/span> Colorado’s 2018 midterm election was an across-the-board smackdown to Republicans. Democrats won every statewide office for the first time in 80 years and gained their largest legislative majority since 1958.
\nIn several local elections, voters rejected Republicans and chose Democrats who were either manifestly unqualified or incredibly outside the mainstream.
\nShell-shocked Republicans are asking, “Want went wrong?” The answers may not be what Republicans want to hear.
\nFirst, a little good news: Coloradans do not want to pay more taxes.
\nVoters rejected a $1.6 billion tax increase for education by 53-46 percent, while ranking education as one of their priorities. A sales tax hike for transportation fared even worse, failing 59-40 percent.
\nFor Republicans, that’s where the good news ends.
\nComparing 2018 to 2014 is instructive. While 2014 was a Republican wave election nationwide, results in Colorado were mixed. Republicans won the U.S. Senate with Cory Gardner (by less than 40,000 votes); lost the Governor’s race (by 68,000); elected the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Treasurer; gained a one-vote majority in the State Senate; and fell two seats short in the State House.
\nIn 2018, 28,200 more Republican voters turned out than in 2014. However, Democrat (up 157,698) and unaffiliated (up 256,140) turnout surged.
\nIn 2014, Republicans cast 110,000 more ballots than Democrats and accounted for 37 percent of all voters. In 2018, Republicans accounted for only 31 percent of all voters, and Democrats cast 46,000 more ballots.
\nFor the first time, more ballots were cast by unaffiliated voters (UAVs) than by either party. To win in that environment, Republicans must be attractive to UAVs. Unfortunately, UAVs in Colorado have been trending Democrat for several elections and did so even more decisively in 2018.
\nIn 2012, 60 percent of UAVs preferred Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. In 2016, 62 percent of UAVs preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
\nHistorically, a significant portion of UAVs are “ticket-splitters” \u2013 voting for some Democrats and some Republicans. In 2014, John Hickenlooper won 68% of UAVs. However, Republican Cynthia Coffman won 58% in the race for Attorney General.
\nBased on that model, 28 percent of UAVs were ticket splitters in 2014, but in 2018, only 7 percent split their votes. Jared Polis won UAVs by 65-35 percent, while the leading statewide Republican, Attorney General candidate George Brauchler, lost UAVs 58-42 percent.
\nMost unaffiliated voters were sending a message to Republicans, and it obviously wasn’t about taxes. The hard and fast message is that unaffiliated voters in Colorado are animated by their dislike for Donald Trump.
\nTo be sure, UAVs are not all alike. In Pueblo County, Hillary Clinton received fewer votes than the number of Democrat ballots cast. The same thing happened in 14 other rural counties. Meanwhile, in Park, Jackson and Hinsdale counties, more Republicans voted than the total for Trump.
\nAlong the rest of the Front Range, home to 80 percent of Colorado voters, the story is different. Only in Weld County did UAVs vote for Trump (59 percent) in 2016 and for Republicans in 2018. Sobering numbers …read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

Via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado’s 2018 midterm election was an across-the-board smackdown to Republicans. Democrats won every statewide office for the first time in 80 years and gained their largest legislative majority since 1958.
\nIn several local elections, voters rejected Republicans and chose Democrats who were either manifestly unqualified or incredibly outside the mainstream.
\nShell-shocked Republicans are asking, “Want went wrong?” The answers may not be what Republicans want to hear.
\nFirst, a little good news: Coloradans do not want to pay more taxes.
\nVoters rejected a $1.6 billion tax increase for education by 53-46 percent, while ranking education as one of their priorities. A sales tax hike for transportation fared even worse, failing 59-40 percent.
\nFor Republicans, that’s where the good news ends.
\nComparing 2018 to 2014 is instructive. While 2014 was a Republican wave election nationwide, results in Colorado were mixed. Republicans won the U.S. Senate with Cory Gardner (by less than 40,000 votes); lost the Governor’s race (by 68,000); elected the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Treasurer; gained a one-vote majority in the State Senate; and fell two seats short in the State House.
\nIn 2018, 28,200 more Republican voters turned out than in 2014. However, Democrat (up 157,698) and unaffiliated (up 256,140) turnout surged.
\nIn 2014, Republicans cast 110,000 more ballots than Democrats and accounted for 37 percent of all voters. In 2018, Republicans accounted for only 31 percent of all voters, and Democrats cast 46,000 more ballots.
\nFor the first time, more ballots were cast by unaffiliated voters (UAVs) than by either party. To win in that environment, Republicans must be attractive to UAVs. Unfortunately, UAVs in Colorado have been trending Democrat for several elections and did so even more decisively in 2018.
\nIn 2012, 60 percent of UAVs preferred Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. In 2016, 62 percent of UAVs preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
\nHistorically, a significant portion of UAVs are “ticket-splitters” \u2013 voting for some Democrats and some Republicans. In 2014, John Hickenlooper won 68% of UAVs. However, Republican Cynthia Coffman won 58% in the race for Attorney General.
\nBased on that model, 28 percent of UAVs were ticket splitters in 2014, but in 2018, only 7 percent split their votes. Jared Polis won UAVs by 65-35 percent, while the leading statewide Republican, Attorney General candidate George Brauchler, lost UAVs 58-42 percent.
\nMost unaffiliated voters were sending a message to Republicans, and it obviously wasn’t about taxes. The hard and fast message is that unaffiliated voters in Colorado are animated by their dislike for Donald Trump.
\nTo be sure, UAVs are not all alike. In Pueblo County, Hillary Clinton received fewer votes than the number of Democrat ballots cast. The same thing happened in 14 other rural counties. Meanwhile, in Park, Jackson and Hinsdale counties, more Republicans voted than the total for Trump.
\nAlong the rest of the Front Range, home to 80 percent of Colorado voters, the story is different. Only in Weld County did UAVs vote for Trump (59 percent) in 2016 and for Republicans in 2018. Sobering numbers …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1381603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 07:54:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KKCH - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1381603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1381603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1381603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1381603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}