This story by Chase Woodruff originally appeared on Colorado Newsline on August 15, 2024.

There is near-universal agreement among Coloradans that rising living costs, and particularly housing costs, are among the biggest challenges facing the state.

Nearly two-thirds of Coloradans say housing and cost of living are both “extremely serious” problems, according to the 2024 Pulse Poll, an annual survey by the Colorado Health Foundation. About a quarter say they are “very serious” problems, and just 2% told pollsters they are “not too serious.”

Homelessness ranks right behind as the third biggest concern for Colorado residents, with 79% saying it is an extremely or very serious problem.

Concern about these important issues is shared “across all racial and ethnic subgroups” as well as across all income brackets, said Dave Metz, a pollster at FM3 Research who helped conduct the survey, during a briefing Wednesday.

“This fear of inflation and cost of living really affects the entire socioeconomic spectrum in Colorado,” Metz said. “Of course, it can affect different households in different ways, but it’s a very real issue everywhere.”

The Colorado Health Foundation calls the Pulse poll, conducted annually by a nonpartisan polling team, one of the state’s most comprehensive public opinion surveys, with a special emphasis on gathering responses from a representative sample of communities of color and rural communities. The 2024 results are based on surveys of 2,404 Coloradans between May 20 and June 24 and have a 3% margin of error.

While most of Coloradans’ biggest concerns are shared across the political spectrum, two hot-button issues have generated significant partisan differences, the poll shows.

Among Democrats in Colorado, 4 in 5 said climate change was an extremely or very serious problem, compared to fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans. Conversely, 85% of Republicans said illegal immigration was a serious problem, compared to only 27% of Democrats.

A dramatic increase in the number of Republicans who say illegal immigration is an extremely serious problem – from 44% in 2023 to 64% this year – catapulted the issue to No. 8 on the list of Coloradans’ biggest concerns in 2024. Last year, it ranked last among 17 issues surveyed in the Pulse poll.

Concern about most other issues is relatively unchanged from last year, the survey found. The share of Coloradans who said “crime in general” is a serious problem declined slightly from 62% to 59%. After a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, crime rates in Colorado have been declining since mid-2022, according to data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigations.

For the first time, pollsters asked respondents a separate question about “crime in your neighborhood” and found a stark difference in the results: Only 26 percent said it was a serious problem, the lowest of all 18 topics surveyed. This is another finding that is consistent across all demographics, Metz said.

“It just seems to be part of the mental framework with which Coloradans generally view these issues,” he said. “Even if you don’t see evidence of crime in your own community, you read about it in the news and see posts on social media. There are things other than direct personal experience that can cause concern.”

A “sense of belonging”?
Another new set of questions in the Pulse survey this year asked what, if anything, made respondents feel like they “didn’t belong.”

“We believe that a sense of belonging — feeling connected to the community and feeling that our contributions are valued in the places we call home — is essential to people’s health and well-being,” said Kyle Rojas Legleiter, senior director of policy at the Colorado Health Foundation. “A large sample allows us to analyze and compare key demographic characteristics, the relationship between respondents’ sense of belonging and the other challenges they face, such as high living and housing costs.”

Nearly half of LGBTQ Colorado residents said they felt out of place because of their sexuality, and 51% of Black Colorado residents said the same about their race. Others cited age, disabilities, religion and other factors as the cause of similar feelings. But among the general population, by far the most common reason for not belonging was respondents’ political beliefs.

This feeling was most pronounced among Republicans in Colorado: 54 percent of them said they felt a lack of belonging because of their beliefs, compared with 40 percent of unaffiliated voters and 31 percent of Democrats.

“We heard people again in focus groups telling us that they’ve lost friends, that they’ve even become disconnected from their families because of their political beliefs,” said Lori Weigel, director at New Bridge Strategy and one of the pollsters on the Pulse survey. “And that was really the most important thing here.”

Post author

The Pagosa Daily Post welcomes contributions, photos, letters and videos from people who love Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Call 970-903-2673 or email [email protected]