Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get right to our special guest, Kevin Ingham has been
on the show quite.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
A few times before.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
He is a Democratic polster at the bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute.
I don't even know who the Republican polster is. I
keep having you. You do such a good job. Who's
the primary Republican polster over there?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah, Lori Weigel at new Bridge Strategy is our Republican
polster as part of the bipartisan team.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So I wanted to talk about the poll that you
guys just released a few days ago. Your your state
wide pole here in Colorado had some really interesting findings.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's not all political.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I think a lot of it is maybe a little
bit a little bit troubling for the state, not you know,
including the state's politicians, but not primarily for them.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Just how people are feeling.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Why don't you just tell us a couple of the
top things that jumped out for you, and then I've
got a couple of questions. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Absolutely, So.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
This was a survey of a little over six hundred,
likely twenty twenty six voters statewide here in Colorado, and
when we asked voters how they're feeling about politics, this
is not necessarily directed to any particular politician, but just
politics in general.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Voters were very concerned. We asked a question.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
About the political situation in the United States, and just
three percent of Colorado voters said that the state of
US politics is in good shape. Seventy two percent went
as far as calling it a crisis. We also asked
a question, for example, about political violence and whether they
thought that that was when the worse and ease or
(01:39):
stay about the same, and almost two thirds of Colorado
voters said that political violence in the United States they
anticipated was going to.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Get worse in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And what's interesting about this is that we pulled the
question about political violence from a national survey because we
wanted to ask the question exact same way. So we
compare Coloradden's attitudes to Americans attitudes across the country, and
Coloradden's were actually eleven points more likely than the rest
of the country to say the political violence is going
(02:13):
to get worse. So it's clearly a lot of concern
right now about the state of our politics here in Colorado,
and in some ways there might be more concern in
Colorado than there is in the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
One of the other questions that you asked about is
the direction that the state is going. And it's not
surprising what some of these results are, but I'd still
like to hear them from you about the differences in
the perception of whether the state is going the right
way or the wrong way based on whether the person
(02:46):
who's answering is a Republican or a Democrat or independent
slash on affiliated.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, So this is actually our fifth state wide survey
and we've been asking the same question every time, and
the question is generally speaking, would you say things in
Colorado or headed in the right direction or are they
off in the wrong track? And we've found over the
last five surveys that voters have been pretty consistent about this.
Roughly half of Colorado voters have been saying that things
(03:12):
are beheading in the right direction and slightly fewer, usually
in the mid forties, have been saying wrong tracks. So
voters have been pretty divided about the direction of the
state that every single time that we have done this,
we've looked under the hood to try and understand how
partisanship might impact those perceptions, and we've always seen the
same thing. When you look at Democrats, for example, three
(03:33):
quarters believe the state is heading in the right direction.
When you look at Republicans, that almost equal numbers say
the opposite, saying that they think that the state is
heading in the wrong direction. And when we look at
unaffiliated voters, which is a huge chunk of the voters
here in Colorado, those voters are almost always evenly divided.
In this most recent survey, forty five percent said yeah,
we're going in the right direction and forty four percent
(03:55):
saying we're going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Right, and so when you have that overall number among
all Coloradens, it's about split fifty to fifty roughly right
track versus wrong track. And to me, that's a lot
like the guy whose head is in the oven and
his feet are in the freezer, so on average, he's fine.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right it really that?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You know, it's you really averages can be misleading. They're
not always misleading, but they but they can be misleading.
One of the other things I thought was interesting was
you asked people, oh, and let me just mention to
listeners you want to read more Copollinginstitute dot org. Copollinginstitute
dot org. And it's up on my blog as well
(04:37):
at Rosskiminsky dot com if you want to if you
want to find this poll, you ask people what are
their top issues. And I was actually kind of surprised
that immigration comes up first, even though it's been a
huge issue in this state. I still would have thought
that cost of living would come up first, although I
think you separated cost of living and housing costs into
(04:59):
two categories, so if you combine them, they would have
been number one by a long way.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So what we try and do is ask people an
open ended question, meaning we don't give them options to
choose from. They tell us in their own words what
they think is the most important issues for the Colorado
State government to address. They tell us in their own words.
Then we try and bring the answers that are similar
together so we can give a sense of proportionality. And
so nine percent of voters mentioned something to do with immigration, right,
(05:28):
And that could be things like there's too much legal immigration,
or it could be I'm concerned about ice and deportations.
But then we also separate out people who have a
general sense that the cost of living is something that
needs to be addressed with a specific concern about housing affordability.
In CPI surveys going back to twenty twenty three, we
have consistently seen that cost of living and the cost
(05:50):
of housing are very high priorities for Colorado voters. And
so when we separate those out, sure they sort of
are roughly equals statistically even with the number who were
mentioning immigration related issues. But when you combine those who
are sort of focused on cost of living issues, it
always comes out at the top of every CPI survey
(06:11):
we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
We're talking with Kevin Ingram Polster for the bipartisan Colorado
Polling Institute again in the website Coepolling Institute dot org.
I've got time for a couple more quick things with you.
So not everything you asked about was political, although most
things you ask about will impact how people feel about
how things are going and how they might end up voting.
(06:34):
People vote their pocketbooks, and one of the questions you
asked was whether Colorado's are planning on cutting spending on
non essential items.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Talk about those results a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
This may have been one of the most stemming results
in the entire survey. So I mentioned a moment ago
that we pulled questions from national polls, so we can
compare Colorado to Americans that large and the question was
compared to one year ago, would you say you have
cut spending on non essential items, increased or has there
been no change? Sixty one percent of Colorado voters say
(07:10):
in the last year they are compared to a year ago,
they have cut spending on non essential items. Now that
number in and of itself is kind of shocking, but
when you compare that with Americans overall, it's about twenty
points higher than it is among all Americans. Among all Americans,
only forty two percent that they have been cutting spending
on non essential items. So color Roddens are telling us, yes,
(07:32):
I'm cutting back, and they're more likely of Americans overall
to say that.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
What's your takeaway from that? Do you have an interpretation
of that data point?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think one of the things that we all know
as Coloraden's is that it is very expensive to live here.
And you saw as we were just discussing Ross that
the questions that people say that they want the state
government to address, the ones that tend to rise to
the surface tend to be those that focus on pocketbooks.
So we know that Coloradden's are there very very focused
on the state of the housing market, on the state,
(08:05):
like the cost of groceries things like that, which are
just very expensive here. So I think color Rodden's are saying, look,
it's already expensive to live here. And when we ask
them if they think that the economy is going to
get worse over the next year, almost half of Coloraden
say that they anticipate the economy is going.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
To get worse.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So you probably have a combination of voters who are
already feeling the pinch as well as sort of trying
to anticipate what they think is coming around the corner,
which is a worse economy in the future.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And you know, it's a very interesting thing. I'll just
wrap up with this. It's very interesting to see on
the one hand, Coloraden's saying that they're feeling so much
financial pressure that they're cutting back significantly on non essential spending.
And yet, as we talked about a moment earlier, still
only about half of the state and very much a
(08:54):
partisan basis, people, you know, the only fifty percent seeing
this the state's still going in the right direction, and
most Democrats saying the state's going in the right direction.
I think there's a small amount of cognitive dissonance in
there as well. But of course, you know, when Democrats
are in charge, Democrats are going to say it's going well,
(09:15):
and Republicans will say it's going badly, even if their
own personal situations, you know, don't reflect that, and then
vice versa when Republicans are in charge. It's just the
world we live in these days. Kevin Ingham, Democratic pollster
for the bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute. Super interesting information. Go
to Copolling Institute dot org to learn more. Thanks for
your time, as always, thanks for the great research.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
As always, thanks for us. So there's a lot there.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
There's a lot in that in that messaging that I
think politicians are going to.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Need to figure out.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
But Colorado politicians in such a blue state probably don't
have quite as much risk as we might have in
more of a swing state.
Get right to our special guest, Kevin Ingham has been
on the show quite.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
A few times before.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
He is a Democratic polster at the bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute.
I don't even know who the Republican polster is. I
keep having you. You do such a good job. Who's
the primary Republican polster over there?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah, Lori Weigel at new Bridge Strategy is our Republican
polster as part of the bipartisan team.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So I wanted to talk about the poll that you
guys just released a few days ago. Your your state
wide pole here in Colorado had some really interesting findings.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's not all political.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I think a lot of it is maybe a little
bit a little bit troubling for the state, not you know,
including the state's politicians, but not primarily for them.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Just how people are feeling.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Why don't you just tell us a couple of the
top things that jumped out for you, and then I've
got a couple of questions. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Absolutely, So.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
This was a survey of a little over six hundred,
likely twenty twenty six voters statewide here in Colorado, and
when we asked voters how they're feeling about politics, this
is not necessarily directed to any particular politician, but just
politics in general.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Voters were very concerned. We asked a question.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
About the political situation in the United States, and just
three percent of Colorado voters said that the state of
US politics is in good shape. Seventy two percent went
as far as calling it a crisis. We also asked
a question, for example, about political violence and whether they
thought that that was when the worse and ease or
(01:39):
stay about the same, and almost two thirds of Colorado
voters said that political violence in the United States they
anticipated was going to.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Get worse in the future.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And what's interesting about this is that we pulled the
question about political violence from a national survey because we
wanted to ask the question exact same way. So we
compare Coloradden's attitudes to Americans attitudes across the country, and
Coloradden's were actually eleven points more likely than the rest
of the country to say the political violence is going
(02:13):
to get worse. So it's clearly a lot of concern
right now about the state of our politics here in Colorado,
and in some ways there might be more concern in
Colorado than there is in the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
One of the other questions that you asked about is
the direction that the state is going. And it's not
surprising what some of these results are, but I'd still
like to hear them from you about the differences in
the perception of whether the state is going the right
way or the wrong way based on whether the person
(02:46):
who's answering is a Republican or a Democrat or independent
slash on affiliated.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, So this is actually our fifth state wide survey
and we've been asking the same question every time, and
the question is generally speaking, would you say things in
Colorado or headed in the right direction or are they
off in the wrong track? And we've found over the
last five surveys that voters have been pretty consistent about this.
Roughly half of Colorado voters have been saying that things
(03:12):
are beheading in the right direction and slightly fewer, usually
in the mid forties, have been saying wrong tracks. So
voters have been pretty divided about the direction of the
state that every single time that we have done this,
we've looked under the hood to try and understand how
partisanship might impact those perceptions, and we've always seen the
same thing. When you look at Democrats, for example, three
(03:33):
quarters believe the state is heading in the right direction.
When you look at Republicans, that almost equal numbers say
the opposite, saying that they think that the state is
heading in the wrong direction. And when we look at
unaffiliated voters, which is a huge chunk of the voters
here in Colorado, those voters are almost always evenly divided.
In this most recent survey, forty five percent said yeah,
we're going in the right direction and forty four percent
(03:55):
saying we're going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Right, and so when you have that overall number among
all Coloradens, it's about split fifty to fifty roughly right
track versus wrong track. And to me, that's a lot
like the guy whose head is in the oven and
his feet are in the freezer, so on average, he's fine.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right it really that?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You know, it's you really averages can be misleading. They're
not always misleading, but they but they can be misleading.
One of the other things I thought was interesting was
you asked people, oh, and let me just mention to
listeners you want to read more Copollinginstitute dot org. Copollinginstitute
dot org. And it's up on my blog as well
(04:37):
at Rosskiminsky dot com if you want to if you
want to find this poll, you ask people what are
their top issues. And I was actually kind of surprised
that immigration comes up first, even though it's been a
huge issue in this state. I still would have thought
that cost of living would come up first, although I
think you separated cost of living and housing costs into
(04:59):
two categories, so if you combine them, they would have
been number one by a long way.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So what we try and do is ask people an
open ended question, meaning we don't give them options to
choose from. They tell us in their own words what
they think is the most important issues for the Colorado
State government to address. They tell us in their own words.
Then we try and bring the answers that are similar
together so we can give a sense of proportionality. And
so nine percent of voters mentioned something to do with immigration, right,
(05:28):
And that could be things like there's too much legal immigration,
or it could be I'm concerned about ice and deportations.
But then we also separate out people who have a
general sense that the cost of living is something that
needs to be addressed with a specific concern about housing affordability.
In CPI surveys going back to twenty twenty three, we
have consistently seen that cost of living and the cost
(05:50):
of housing are very high priorities for Colorado voters. And
so when we separate those out, sure they sort of
are roughly equals statistically even with the number who were
mentioning immigration related issues. But when you combine those who
are sort of focused on cost of living issues, it
always comes out at the top of every CPI survey
(06:11):
we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
We're talking with Kevin Ingram Polster for the bipartisan Colorado
Polling Institute again in the website Coepolling Institute dot org.
I've got time for a couple more quick things with you.
So not everything you asked about was political, although most
things you ask about will impact how people feel about
how things are going and how they might end up voting.
(06:34):
People vote their pocketbooks, and one of the questions you
asked was whether Colorado's are planning on cutting spending on
non essential items.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Talk about those results a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
This may have been one of the most stemming results
in the entire survey. So I mentioned a moment ago
that we pulled questions from national polls, so we can
compare Colorado to Americans that large and the question was
compared to one year ago, would you say you have
cut spending on non essential items, increased or has there
been no change? Sixty one percent of Colorado voters say
(07:10):
in the last year they are compared to a year ago,
they have cut spending on non essential items. Now that
number in and of itself is kind of shocking, but
when you compare that with Americans overall, it's about twenty
points higher than it is among all Americans. Among all Americans,
only forty two percent that they have been cutting spending
on non essential items. So color Roddens are telling us, yes,
(07:32):
I'm cutting back, and they're more likely of Americans overall
to say that.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
What's your takeaway from that? Do you have an interpretation
of that data point?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think one of the things that we all know
as Coloraden's is that it is very expensive to live here.
And you saw as we were just discussing Ross that
the questions that people say that they want the state
government to address, the ones that tend to rise to
the surface tend to be those that focus on pocketbooks.
So we know that Coloradden's are there very very focused
on the state of the housing market, on the state,
(08:05):
like the cost of groceries things like that, which are
just very expensive here. So I think color Rodden's are saying, look,
it's already expensive to live here. And when we ask
them if they think that the economy is going to
get worse over the next year, almost half of Coloraden
say that they anticipate the economy is going.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
To get worse.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So you probably have a combination of voters who are
already feeling the pinch as well as sort of trying
to anticipate what they think is coming around the corner,
which is a worse economy in the future.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And you know, it's a very interesting thing. I'll just
wrap up with this. It's very interesting to see on
the one hand, Coloraden's saying that they're feeling so much
financial pressure that they're cutting back significantly on non essential spending.
And yet, as we talked about a moment earlier, still
only about half of the state and very much a
(08:54):
partisan basis, people, you know, the only fifty percent seeing
this the state's still going in the right direction, and
most Democrats saying the state's going in the right direction.
I think there's a small amount of cognitive dissonance in
there as well. But of course, you know, when Democrats
are in charge, Democrats are going to say it's going well,
(09:15):
and Republicans will say it's going badly, even if their
own personal situations, you know, don't reflect that, and then
vice versa when Republicans are in charge. It's just the
world we live in these days. Kevin Ingham, Democratic pollster
for the bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute. Super interesting information. Go
to Copolling Institute dot org to learn more. Thanks for
your time, as always, thanks for the great research.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
As always, thanks for us. So there's a lot there.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
There's a lot in that in that messaging that I
think politicians are going to.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Need to figure out.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
But Colorado politicians in such a blue state probably don't
have quite as much risk as we might have in
more of a swing state.
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.