How National Party ID Trends Compare in Colorado

Last week Gallup announced that a record 42% of Americans now self-identify as "Independents" when asked about their political affiliation. That 42% is the highest mark for Independents in the 25 years that Gallup has been tracking these things.

The growth in "Independents" apparently came at the detriment to Republicans; only 25% of Americans identify with the GOP, the lowest mark in 25 years. Democratic Party identification remains unchanged in the past 4 years at 31%. But since we all know that there are very few people who are truly Independents, Gallup clarifies:

Democrats maintain their six-point edge in party identification when independents' "partisan leanings" are taken into account. In addition to the 31% of Americans who identify as Democrats, another 16% initially say they are independents but when probed say they lean to the Democratic Party. An equivalent percentage, 16%, say they are independent but lean to the Republican Party, on top of the 25% of Americans identifying as Republicans. All told, then, 47% of Americans identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 41% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party. [Pols emphasis]

So how does this compare to Colorado? It is impossible to make direct comparisons, of course, without access to Gallup's historical survey data. But we can make our own observations using voter registration data compiled by the Colorado Secretary of State's office…

In the past, we would look at voter registration comparisons and focus primarily on "active" voters as a gauge of where Colorado voters stand. But the definition of the terms "active" and "inactive" voter have become fairly muddled since Republican Scott Gessler assumed the office of Secretary of State in January 2011; indeed, Gessler seems happy only when fewer people are voting in general. So in order to find some sort of balance for comparison, we just decided to add up active and inactive voters from Jan. 2010 and Nov. 2013 (the most current data available) to see how things shake out. Take a gander:

As you can see, the voter registration growth in Colorado has definitely been on the "Unaffiliated" side, with both Democrats and Republicans declining in terms of total percentage of the electorate. It's too early to guess which direction Colorado Unaffiliated voters will be leaning in 2014, but if past history is any indication (and it usually is), Democrats will likely still see some kind of advantage among the total voting populace. The easiest comparison here is to look at the results for President in 2012, when Barack Obama carried Colorado 51-46 over Republican Mitt Romney. Since Colorado voter registration numbers were about equal among Democrats and Republicans in November 2012, Obama almost certainly picked up a good chunk of the so-called Unaffiliated vote in Colorado.

If we give Democrats that 5% from the Obama-Romney race, then you could reasonably argue that Party self-ID in Colorado is 36% Democrat, 31.5% Republican, and 31% Unaffiliated. This is similar to the 6% advantage for Democrats identified in the Gallup national poll.

Yes, we realize all of this is completely unscientific, but without directly-comparable data we think this could provide a reasonable glimpse at how Colorado voters self-identify. Because both the Democratic and Republican Parties are lagging far behind in voter registration numbers compared to Unaffiliated designations, the most important factor here — and in November 2014 — will be related to where those "Unaffiliated" voters actually throw their support.

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Democratic National Committee Leverages Big Data to Turn Politics into Political Science

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a political campaign used big data to better understand and predict voter behavior and what was going on on the ground during the 2012 national ...

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a political campaign used big data to better understand and predict voter behavior and what was going on on the ground during the 2012 national elections.

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Pueblo Chieftain’s Reporting Bias Getting National Attention

?Media Matters for America picks up our criticism of a recent Pueblo Chieftain story, regarding an "ethics compliant" filed against Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo by an out-of-district Republican detractor ahead of her recall election next month:

Colorado newspaper The Pueblo Chieftain is credulously reporting on an alleged "ethics complaint" by Democratic State Sen. Angela Giron, which, according to a Colorado ethics watchdog group, will be "almost certainly dismissed as frivolous."

The Chieftain's reporting on the complaint — that Giron posted her state email address and phone number on her campaign website — is latest piece of questionable Chieftain coverage of the recall campaign targeting Giron over her support for stronger gun violence prevention laws…

According the top local news story in the August 3 edition of the Chieftain, "An Avondale man sent an ethics complaint in an email to the Colorado Secretary of State's office Friday" alleging that Giron "is using her state-provided email address and phone number on her campaign website." The complainant reportedly does not live in Giron's district, but contacted the Secretary of State because "he is not a fan of her politics, especially her votes on the state's gun control laws." The story also quoted Becky Mizel, chairwoman of the Pueblo County Republican Party, who falsely claimed that "Angela Giron has chosen to use state resources and taxpayer money for her own political gain," and added that she was "disgusted" by Giron's actions.

In response to the Chieftain article, left-leaning political blog Colorado Pols noted that a number of Colorado state legislators — both Republicans and Democrats — feature state contact information on their campaign websites. In fact, a Media Matters review of Colorado's 100 General Assembly members' campaign websites found that 53 members listed a state phone number, e-mail address and/or mailing address. [Pols emphasis]

After reading about this complaint, it was a simple matter for us to find plenty of Republican legislators who commit the same "infraction" on their own websites. Media Matters found more than half the Colorado legislature lists their official contact information on their campaign websites. The Chieftain reported the original complaint, and a silly, over-the-top response from Pueblo GOP chair Becky Mizel–never bothering to check if this is actually an uncontroversial standard practice. Which, big surprise here folks, it is:

In an interview with Media Matters, Colorado Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro called the allegations against Giron "extremely thin" and predicted that the complaint would "almost certainly [be] dismissed as frivolous." Toro noted that his assessment of the complaint was based on the contents of the Chieftain article as the complaint has not yet appeared on the Colorado Secretary of State website.

Toro told Media Matters that the allegations in the Chieftain article are not properly described as an ethics complaint, but would instead be correctly termed a campaign finance complaint as the complaint concerns Giron's conduct as a candidate, not as a legislator. He added, "The paper would do well to understand the difference between an ethics complaint and a campaign finance complaint" and that it "would be helpful for them to understand the underlying law" so that its readers could be informed as well.

Asked about the permissibility of using state contact information on a campaign website, Toro explained that "the reason everybody does it is because it's legal," and — noting that no money is involved in the allegation against Giron — added that "what's illegal is using state funds to contribute to a campaign."

Bottom line: of course, factuality was not what this Chieftain story was about. The sole purpose of this was to provide a headline for a completely frivolous complaint, ignoring or downplaying all the reasons it is frivolous. It's virtually certain that this "news" story about nothing will find its way into a mailer against Sen. Giron in the coming weeks, with the Chieftain's masthead, the headline and scandalous selective quotes.

That's why credible newspapers check to see if a story is worth writing. But it seems the Pueblo Chieftain is no longer interested in such basic journalistic best practices where the story concerns Angela Giron.

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