We are entering the downhill run of the 2024 election. Everything is moving fast. But not so fast that we don’t have time to fill you in on what we have been doing—and will be doing—with your responses to the Voter Voices survey.
First, thank you to the nearly 2,000 who have filled out the short survey and shared your thoughts on its key question: “What do you want candidates to talk about as they compete for your vote?”
Statewide, more than 6,000 Coloradans have weighed in. The responses are helping inform and guide election coverage across Colorado — and here, close to home — so that it’s more informative, relevant and accurate, serving you better than polls, candidate backbiting and campaign intrigue.
We’re not done asking and listening. Not by a long shot. So, if you haven’t filled out the survey, now is the time. Tell us what you think candidates should be focused on as they compete for your vote and what issues are of top concern. The more we hear from you, the greater our ability to do what we promised in our coverage and to take your concerns to candidates for their responses. It’s a way of holding them — and us — accountable.
So, what have we been doing with all these responses? Your answers before the primary went into stories like this and helped shape what we asked candidates for our voter guide. While some of you who took the survey went on to talk to reporters in more detail, we want to reaffirm that we'll never use your contact information for any purpose other than our election coverage.
Your answers were critical to statewide stories that focused on Coloradans’ frustrations with the vitriol of campaigning, the finger-pointing and superficial noise that sidestepped real solutions and the compromise it might take to put those solutions into action. They went into stories about top voter concerns around democracy and good government and the cost of living.
As the general election draws near, we want to hear from those of you who have yet to respond. We want to be able to report back to you what we are hearing and ask you what we are missing. We want to put your questions to candidates. The sooner the better. When ballots start to hit your mailboxes next month, expect a comprehensive voter guide from us that breaks down all the state ballot issues and provides readers with a sense of where congressional and statewide candidates stand on issues you've told us are important to you.
You might want to know that by participating in the Voter Voices survey you have — or will, if you haven't done it yet — become part of a grand experiment in political news coverage that asks, then listens and responds to dozens, hundreds, thousands of voters — your neighbors and fellow residents.
We are among a group of more than three dozen Colorado news organizations sending the survey out into their communities this election year. And just a couple weeks ago, a nationally known journalism professor and media critic said that in his 32 years of championing voter-centric political coverage, he’s never seen anything like this. It is unprecedented. He wants it to succeed.
So do we.
