What’s a 150th birthday party if no one comes?
That’s the conundrum facing Colorado as it nears its sesquicentennial, or 150th anniversary of statehood, on Aug. 1. Less than a third of Colorado voters, 30%, said they’d heard much about the landmark, according to a poll released Tuesday, and only 6% said they’d heard a lot about the event.
“I’m sure the historians will be a little depressed about this one,” chuckled pollster Lori Weigel, principal of New Bridge Strategy, during a poll briefing.
Dozens of events big and small are featured across the state to mark the milestone anniversary. The full details are available at www.am250co150.org.
All that said, most Coloradans do feel an innate pride in the state and its success. Eighty-four percent said they were moderately to extremely proud of their home state, outpacing the 75% who felt similar levels of national pride.
Further, there’s near-unanimity in what Coloradans feel is important now: protecting Colorado’s lands and waters (89% ranked it as very important; 99% said it carried some level of importance); ensuring free and fair elections (89% very important, 98% assigning it some level of importance); and being a place where people can afford to live and work (84% very important, 98% giving it some level of importance). Those three topped the list.
The poll, conducted June 26 to July 1, included 655 registered voters statewide. It was conducted by a bipartisan team from New Bridge Strategy and Aspect Strategies on behalf of the Colorado Polling Institute. The margin of error is 3.8 percentage points.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a quarter of proud respondents cited the state’s natural beauty and outdoors as their top reason they’re proud to be a Coloradan. The next-largest category, the state’s progressive policies and rights, was cited by 13% of respondents.
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But politics also crept into respondents’ ways of thinking, too.
Among conservatives, 97% said they were proud to be American, versus 67% who said they were proud to be Coloradans. That dynamic flipped for liberals, 94% of whom were proud to be Coloradans compared to 61% who were proud to be American.
Of course, Republicans hold trifecta control of Congress and the White House, while Democrats have large majorities in the state legislature and occupy the governor’s office.
Overall, the pollsters highlighted that this poll — conducted during the high nationalism of the Fourth of July and America 250 celebrations and the hosting of the men’s World Cup soccer tournament in U.S. cities — found more unity than not, and far less partisanship than they usually see in their polls.
Seventy percent of respondents said they felt Coloradans had more in common than things dividing them, and 66% felt the state’s best days were ahead. They felt similarly about the country, with 77% saying Americans had more in common that not and 63% saying the country’s best days were ahead.
“We often see everything so divisive,” Weigel said. “The fact that we had solid majorities agreeing that our best days are ahead, that did surprise me to some extent.”
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