Colorado 2026 Voter Priorities

Objective and context

Colorado 2026 Voter Priorities explored how Coloradans are weighing cost of living, the housing crisis, water scarcity, one-party dominance, and an open governor’s race. Across seven qualitative prompts (n=10), voters framed priorities as practical, interlocking problems that they want solved with measurable, near-term delivery-not slogans.

What we heard across questions

Cost of living is a constellation, not a single bill. Rent/mortgage pressure sits at the center, but voters feel equally squeezed by insurance and utility pass‑throughs, childcare, and surprise healthcare bills-creating a constant “mental math” load. As Amanda Ruiz put it: “If rent were sane, everything else would stop feeling like a four-alarm fire.” Addison Nguyen echoed: “Day to day, it’s me doing constant tiny math.”

Housing is blocked by local process friction. Respondents tied high costs to zoning, discretionary hearings, parking minimums, and slow permits that push builders toward “amenity-heavy” product (Molly Kubek: “Developers chase luxury because the math and risk push them there”). Most blame incentives and bottlenecks more than villains; they want by-right mid‑density near transit, permit shot clocks, transparent/capped fees, and NIMBY guardrails.

Water is a steady, high-stakes worry that demands receipts. Concern is 7–8/10, with trust resting in local operators, not campaign talk. Connie Miranda: “Long fuse, big bomb… show me acre-feet by when, at what cost per household.” Priorities: eliminate nonfunctional turf/HOA barriers, fix leaks, scale reuse, invest in wildfire/watersheds, and tie growth to provable supply; some rural voices stress local control (Miguel Salazar: “Keep our water local. No pipe games.”).

Government and politics: less drama, more delivery. Voters accept term limits and want a “boring but competent” governor who moves measurable line items (permits, fees, insurance, transit). Michael Bennet is seen as competent yet “DC-centric”-credible only if he translates experience into state-level delivery. Colorado’s blue tilt lowers culture-war noise (Ruiz: “steadier hands”) but raises accountability demands: guardrails, fiscal notes, sunsets, and public dashboards. In CO‑8, saturation annoys; voters tolerate outreach when it’s bilingual, timed respectfully, and shows its math (Devin Ponce: “Dollars and schedules… Line item, year, segment.”; Molly Kubek described shift-sleep disruptions from knocks).

Persona correlations

• Young renters/students (Front Range): immediate relief on rent, junk fees, and late-night transit gaps; distrust vague promises (Nguyen, Sanchez).
• Working parents: housing + childcare as a single bind; need bilingual, plain-language comms and visible fee enforcement (Ruiz, Crystal Fernandez).
• Homeowners: volatility in insurance, escrow/property tax, and HOA pass‑throughs; want monthly-bill predictability (Cardenas, Kubek, Miranda).
• Built‑environment pros: permit throughput, SLAs, staffing, and fee transparency (Ponce, Hurtado).
• Rural younger workers: year‑round jobs, mobile services (DMV/clinics), and protection of local water (Salazar).
• Technocratic voters: auditable metrics-acre‑feet, cost/household, permit clocks, AMI outcomes (Miranda, Ponce).

Recommendations

• Housing delivery compact: by-right ADUs/duplex–fourplex near rail/BRT; eliminate parking minimums there; condo defect reform; permit shot clocks with public dashboards; cap/standardize local fees; pair with renter junk-fee crackdown and portable screenings (Hurtado, Ruiz, Ponce).
• Insurance/utility stability: wildfire/roof hardening grants tied to premium credits; PUC “show your bill” explainer; property-tax smoothing tools (Cardenas, Kubek).
• Water reality plan: turf/HOA reform, leak-loss targets, funded reuse/purple-pipe timelines, prepublished drought triggers, voluntary compensated ag conservation; quarterly acre‑feet dashboard; bilingual FAQs (Miranda, Cardenas).
• Healthcare billing rules: binding good‑faith estimates with CPT codes honored within ±10%; 15‑day miscode fix clock; ban surprise facility fees (Miranda).
• CO‑8 precision outreach: fewer, higher‑quality contacts; timing guardrails; authentic Spanish; one-pagers with local line items and dates (Sanchez, Kubek, Ponce).

Risks and measurement guardrails

• Overpromising timelines → limit to 6–12 week deliverables; publish progress dashboards with misses explained.
• Local backlash to preemption → lead with carrots/objective standards; focus by-right near transit; co‑brand with water/EMS voices.
• Token Spanish → use paid bilingual editors and community reviewers; avoid machine translation.

• KPIs: lift in “boring competence” trust (+10–12pp in target segments); ≥60% recall of 2+ line items (permit clocks, junk‑fee cap) with ≥70% relevance; 25k users and ≥55% completion on calculators; 100% Spanish parity with NPS ≥ +30; CO‑8 irritation index ≤1.0% canvass complaints and ≤2.5% SMS opt‑outs.

Next steps

1. Weeks 1–2: Stand up “Receipts” one‑pagers (housing, utilities/insurance, childcare, water) in EN/ES; schedule CO‑8 events with timing guardrails.
2. Weeks 3–6: Launch permit/water dashboards (alpha), household impact calculator, and insurer/utility bill explainer; begin A/B testing by persona.
3. Weeks 7–12: Secure Housing Delivery Compact sign‑ons; expand reuse/turf funding details with acre‑feet targets; publish enforcement timelines for junk‑fee and healthcare billing rules; iterate outreach based on KPI readouts.