Thousands of Coloradans responding to a survey by their local newsrooms say candidates competing for their votes this year need to be focused primarily on several broad issues: democracy and good government, the economy and cost of living, the environment, climate and natural resources, immigration and abortion.

Which concerns weigh most heavily on respondents’ minds changes with their politics. Conservatives in the survey prioritized immigration and the economy, followed by the state of the government. Moderates and liberals, in contrast, chose democracy and good government as their top issue by a wide margin.

“If we don’t have free and informed citizens with equal access to the ballot box, then we won’t have democracy and the country won’t be worth preserving,” Marcus Pohlmann, a Highlands Ranch resident and a professor emeritus of political science, wrote in a comment that was echoed by many others.

The survey is a part of an ongoing effort among more than 60 Colorado newsrooms, including The Denver Post, to ask, listen and respond to what voters in their communities say matters to them most. As part of the Voter Voices project, we are asking our communities, among other things, to rank their top three issues from 13 categories.

An issue’s ranking reveals its importance to voters, but not the nuances of their views. Those nuances are emerging in the answer to the survey’s core question: “What do you want candidates to talk about as they compete for your vote?”

So far, more than 4,500 Coloradans have answered that question in the survey, which was not scientific but provided a broad window into Coloradans’ thinking about the election.

The vast majority to date self-identify as white and liberal or moderate, and they live along the densely populated — and deeply blue — Front Range. But voters in red, rural communities and purple suburbs are also responding.

And lots of people have lots they want to say to politicians:

From Denver: “Housing, housing, housing. The cost of living is too high and it is primarily driven by the high cost of housing. We need to break down legal barriers and construct housing of all types, especially in dense urban areas and around transit.”

From Grand Junction: “I want everyone to be consistent in their framework and philosophies issue to issue. Wanting to control bodies and love and calling for unfettered freedom for guns and LLCs is inherently incongruent. I want somebody who values civil liberty.”

From Durango: “The homeless situation is out of control. Vets, young families, panhandlers on corners, and those without jobs, how do states handle this?? Immigrants brought in who are seeking asylum?? Monies going out to countries in need vs. our own country. … I think we need to focus on our economy and our homeland first.”

From Fort Collins: “The pursuit of unsustainable (population) growth is inexcusable and should be dropped. This includes the ridiculous YIMBY (aka real estate developer) policies.”

From Fremont County: “Illegal immigration, violations of our constitutional 2nd right amendment, stopping the Trump tax cuts which will result in higher taxes, economy/cost of living, increasing oil and gas production.”

From Fort Morgan: “I would like them to talk about how high and unreasonable the cost of living has become. Do we pay rent and insurance but go hungry?”

From Littleton: “Need to address returning Roe vs Wade. Such a big deal that made our country turn back time. No one should govern another person’s body. Period.”

From Alamosa County: “How they plan on limiting government involvement in my life. Define their priorities so that I may determine how they align with mine.”

From Aurora: “What would you do to reduce wealth inequity? Would you support/subsidize starter home-building initiatives? Would you support before and after school childcare for elementary students?”

Joe Brooks, a 53-year-old father of elementary-school-age children who lives in Thornton, summed up a common sentiment while acknowledging political reality: “I’d love to hear them talk more about what’s really, really at stake, which is personal liberty and freedom. Everybody really wants that, but people disagree on how that looks.”

Turned off by “petty partisan bickering”

One of the most striking takeaways from the survey so far is how many respondents answered the question of what they want candidates to talk about with how they want candidates to speak: Without rancor, without partisanship, posturing or platitudes — and with commitments to compromise, transparency and pragmatism.

“How they will get over petty partisan bickering and actually do the job they were elected to do,” Tim Samuelson, a 42-year-old self-described moderate who lives in Denver, wrote in his survey response. “Form policies together that aren’t fringe issues that the majority of the public doesn’t think about on a daily basis. Get to work, quit the gamesmanship.”

Put more bluntly by another survey respondent: “How they plan to fix this mess, not what a jackass the other guy is. We already know that.”

Hyper-partisanship is a perennial lament about politics. But the sharp — and sometimes plaintive — edge in the call for candidates to work together seems in part intensified by the sense among respondents that the stakes are just too high now to do otherwise.

That sentiment surfaces in the big-picture responses: democracy in peril, the planet in danger, our personal and civil liberties under attack. But anxiety also simmers in respondents’ day-to-day concerns, worries that can be summed up with: can’t buy a house, can’t afford rent, our roads are bad, our schools need help, farming is under threat, taxes are unfairly assessed and distributed, traffic is killing us, our health care system is broken, the gap between the haves and have-nots has become a chasm and I’m never, ever, making it to the other side.

In the face of all that, Samuelson, who is also the father of three young children whom he worries will grow up with fewer opportunities and more threats, finds the partisan sniping not simply intolerable, but irresponsible.

“I just get the feeling from so many politicians that it’s about being heard and seen and having that platform instead of the desire to govern,” he said in an interview.

Crossing partisan lines

More than 300 miles southwest, Bayfield resident Evanne Caviness shares Samuelson’s frustration and builds upon it.

In her response to the Durango Herald’s survey, Caviness emphasized a point made by other respondents: She and her husband, and the things that concern them, cannot be reduced to one side of the partisan line or the other.

“I’m progressive in social issues, but I’m also a rural rancher,” she wrote in her survey. “So we don’t fit neatly in a box like many candidates treat us.”

Caviness lives in the 3rd Congressional District, the massive, sprawling home to mansions and mobile home parks, to the mountains that nestle Aspen west through farmland and public lands, south into tribal nations, through villages built on Spanish land grants and working-class Pueblo neighborhoods into the southeastern plains.

She is 27. She is Latina, Indigenous and white. She married her high school sweetheart and they are now first-generation farmers and ranchers who sell grass-fed beef — so yeah, they’d like a word with Gov. Jared Polis about his “MeatOut” day.

But Caviness also works for the nonprofit National Young Farmers Coalition, and she is dedicated to eliminating systemic barriers that have kept young people and people of color out of agriculture.

Caviness doesn’t agree with some of the politics of her older, conservative neighbors, but says that she and her husband will drop everything to answer their call for help with the cows or anything else. “That’s just who we are as a community.”

And so she wants that, too — a candidate who has a concrete plan to build on common ground rather than exploit divides.

“So long as we are distracted by whatever is trending on social media at the moment, whatever outrageous thing we have to be mad about now, it’s, like: OK, but yeah, young farmers are still not going to be able to buy land,” Caviness says. “My kids are still going to have to go to Denver to go to the audiologist and I have to pay for that out of pocket. These are issues that are still happening while you are debating something ridiculous that doesn’t affect us on the day to day.”

Tina Griego is the managing editor of the Colorado News Collaborative, which is leading the Voter Voices project. Megan Verlee is the public affairs editor at Colorado Public Radio, the project’s lead partner. 

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.