Special Mountaineer Exit Poll: The How and Why of Democrats’ Big Wins in CO

The 2020 election was an unmitigated disaster for Donald Trump, Cory Gardner, and the Republican Party in Colorado.

We released a special Mountaineer exit survey of 900 Colorado voters, including an oversample of 100 additional Hispanic voters, that lays out the how and the why of the Democrats’ massive 2020 victory in the Centennial State.

Here’s what we found:

  • Hispanic voters, unaffiliateds, and college-educated whites drove Biden and Hickenlooper victories
  • 2020 saw the continued shift of white-collar metro areas away from Republicans, while Biden’s results in the blue-collar metros and rural Colorado were relatively close to Polis’ margins in 2018
  • Trump has damaged the GOP brand in Colorado in a way that could last for years, while Polis and Bennet have strong standing heading into the 2022 cycle
    Hispanics, white women, college-educated whites, and unaffiliateds helped drive Prop 115 to a resounding defeat