The countdown is on to Election Day. How does Douglas County stack up against neighboring counties on ballot returns? How do returns compare to previous elections? We’ve got a summary for you as of Sunday, October 25th, and resources for you to keep tabs in the coming days.
Douglas County leads the way in total turnout.
Along with Boulder, Douglas County leads the way among neighboring large counties in total turnout. According to the same data set, the overall turnout statewide is 20.7%.
Turnout is higher for some affiliations than other.
Nine days before the election, turnout for voters registered as Democrats outpaces turnout for any other party affiliation in Douglas County. It’s important to distinguish turnout from votes returned. The greatest raw number of votes returned comes from Unaffiliated voters because they make up more than half of all DougCo voters. Turnout creates an apples-to-apples comparison because it is the percentage of voters who are registered with a particular affiliation who have returned their ballots.
Turnout is up relative to the 2022 midterm and just below turnout for the 2024 Presidential election.
Turnout is typically lower for midterms relative to Presidential elections. According to Colorado Secretary of State election data, total turnout for Douglas County was 71.9% (compared with 66.28% statewide) in the 2022 midterm and 86.04% (compared with 79.84% statewide) in the 2024 Presidential election.
Data from the Denver Post are updated only on weekdays and so do not reflect the weekend returns accounted for in data from Capitol Commons. But the 2026 turnout percentages relative to the 2022 midterms provided by the Denver Post are another way to think about the differences in return rates based on political affiliation.
As of Friday, October 23rd, overall turnout for Douglas County was up 92%, nearly doubling the same-date returns in the 2022 midterm election. Turnout for Unaffiliated voters is so far up 124% compared to the last midterm, compared with 90% for Democrats and 60% for Republicans.
But there’s a complication.
Data from Capitol Commons and Denver Post agree: Turnout is tracking well above the 2022 midterms and much more closely to the 2024 Presidential election. However, a recent change in state law means that ballots went out about a week earlier this year than in past years. Is that difference creating the appearance of greater-than-average midterm turnout rate? Or is the turnout increase real? Time will tell.
What does this all mean?
DougCo turnout has run about five percentage points ahead of statewide voter turnout in the past two general elections (2022 and 2024). As of Sunday, that lead holds steady. The differences based on party affiliation are the real story so far in the returns data, though some may argue that Republicans have a higher tendency to vote in-person and on election day. These data are just one peek under the veil of what we’re all waiting to see with the first report of election results at 7 p.m. on November 3rd.
VOTE!
Jump on the bandwagon and return those ballots. It’s too late to mail them. The deadline is for receipt of your ballot, not for the postmark. Find your nearest secure ballot drop box to return your ballot or a voter service center near you to vote in-person. If you’ve lost your ballot or did not receive it in the mail, you can get a replacement at a voter service center.
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