As with voters across the U.S., Colorado voters seem to have decided how they will mark their ballot, and they are motivated to get the job done. During the first week of early voting more than 576,705 ballots we’re cast (mostly by return mail and drop boxes) through Friday, October 16th, according to data report by the Secretary of State’s office. For the 2016 election, Colorado voters had cast only 42,416 ballots by the 18th day before the November 8th election day that year.
A Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey survey of likely Colorado voters, conducted Oct. 8-13, found Democrat John Hickenlooper up 10 points over Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, 51% to 41%, with 7% undecided, confirming similar results from the two nonpartisan polls released in the last week by Colorado Politics/9News and Morning Consult. The Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey also found Donald Trump trails Joe Biden among likely Colorado voters by 15 points, 54% to 39%, with 4% undecided.
While limiting voting using drop boxes is certainly good news for Republicans, because many more Democrats than Republicans are expected to use that voting option, not all Texas news is good for the GOP. Since 2016, 3 million voters have registered in Texas. That means that about 1 in 5 (20%) of all current Texas voters were not registered in 2016.
The popular notion that the polls were way off in 2016 is wrong. If a poll says that "Smith" is ahead of "Jones" 49% to 47% with a margin of error of 4 points, what that means is that the pollster is predicting that there is a 95% chance that Smith will score in the range 45% to 53% and that Jones will come in between 43% and 51%. Victory by Jones, 50% to 44%, would mean the pollster still got it right. In 2016, the national polls had Hillary Clinton winning by 3%. She won by 2.1%, which is close to perfect. The state polls weren't as good. The worst state was Wisconsin. We had Clinton ahead 46% to 41%. She indeed got 46% but Trump got 47%, so he was slightly outside the predicted range of about 37% to 45%. The final predictions for Michigan and Pennsylvania were correct in terms of the ranges predicted.
