Unaffiliated voters claim outright majority of Colorado electorate

It finally happened: Colorado voters unaffiliated with any party now make up a majority of the electorate, after years of flirting with the mark.

The latest round of voter registration statistics, published by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office earlier this month, shows 51% of all voters — active, inactive, and pre-registered — opted against affiliating with any political party. That is up from 49.5% of the total in November 2024 and from 42% in November 2020.

Unaffiliated voters have long been the largest single bloc in Colorado. A series of reforms in recent years, including automatic voter registration and opening partisan primary elections to unaffiliated voters, helped fuel the growth.

“There is no incentive anymore for a voter to register with a party,” aside from personal identity, Colorado State University political science professor Kyle Saunders said of the milestone.

The shift also comes at a cost to party power as fewer people opt to get involved in partisan politics. Most unaffiliated voters, despite no formal party ties, still generally vote like partisans, Saunders noted, but will have less say in directing the parties themselves without joining up.

Voters have increasingly soured on the two main political parties. A recent poll published by Magellan Strategies found Colorado voters held equally unfavorable views of both parties: 68% unfavorable to 30% favorable for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Unaffiliated voters were marginally more sour than the general electorate, with 70% holding unfavorable views to 28% with favorable views of either party.

Likewise, the shift away from a party preference has hit the two major parties similarly. Both parties have lost about 140,000 registered voters between November 2020 and now, while the number of unaffiliated voters has grown by nearly 530,000 people. That represents an 11% drop for Democrats and 12% for Republicans, while the number of unaffiliated voters grew by 30% in that span.

Among the two parties, Democrats still hold a registration advantage over Republicans of 1.1 million to 1 million affiliated voters. More than 2.3 million Coloradans are unaffiliated with a party. There are about 111,500 voters registered with a third party.

Shad Murib, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, called it “phenomenal” that total voter registration has increased and celebrated increased voter engagement. He highlighted that the raw number of registered Democrats has remained relatively flat and chalked the drop off to typical post-election changes. Analysts have been tracking a national plunge in Democratic registrations, according to the New York Times.

The growing share of unaffiliated voters reflects the work Democrats have ahead of them, Murib said. Instead of focusing on voter registration, the party needs to focus on voter persuasion.

The party has been engaging in a series of townhalls across the state and working on new grassroots efforts to engage more voters and, Murib hopes, encourage more to join the party. He noted that even with voters giving the parties unfavorable marks — and he argued that might be overstated — Democrats are still seeing electoral success in the state.

He agreed with Saunders, the political science professor, that the lower registration rates result in weaker parties. Having more members equals more voices and opinions to help steer the party, Murib said. While primary elections are open to party members and unaffiliated voters, only registered party members can participate in their respective assemblies and local caucuses. Those events help determine who ends up on those primary ballots. They’re “probably the best way for folks to have their voices heard immediately,” Murib said.

“If folks want to see a more moderate Democratic Party, they can show up and support more moderate candidates,” Murib said. “If they want a more progressive Democratic Party, they can show up and support more progressive candidates.”