Colorado early voting: GOP blows out Dems

Republicans are blowing out Democrats in Colorado early voting, the secretary of State there says.

{mosads}According to the Associated Press, 104,000 more GOP voters have taken advantage of early voting in Colorado than Democrats.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is trailing his Republican opponent, Rep. Cory Gardner, in most polls. A loss by Udall would make it exceedingly difficult for Democrats to retain control of the Senate. 

Colorado’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, is also in a tight race as he seeks a second term. Historically Democratic voters have long been more likely to stay at home in midterm elections, and the party’s base is also unhappy or disaffected with many of their leaders.

The AP said that 41 percent of the 1.1 million early ballots were from Republicans, with roughly a third coming from Democrats and a quarter from independent voters. Colorado’s voters are basically evenly split among the three groups.

Republicans said those results showed how strong a position they were in, after the GOP has tried to modernize its get-out-the-vote efforts on social media and other platforms.

Older voters – more likely to side with the GOP – have voted early in bigger numbers, and younger Republican voters have even outvoted their Democratic counterparts.

Democrats counter that their voters have historically come to the polls later, and that the unaffiliated voters that have voted early fit the profile of their supporters.