Colorado Voters Have Returned More Democratic Ballots Than Republican On The Eve Of Super Tuesday

Updated 5:46 p.m.

Coloradans have returned just over a million ballots in the presidential primary one day out from Super Tuesday.

The number of Democratic ballots cast jumped past Republican ones this past weekend, with 619,947 Democratic ballots returned to 526,702 Republican ballots. Another 79,627 votes were still being processed as of Monday evening.

About 30 percent of the ballots returned as of Sunday came from unaffiliated voters, who can participate in either party's primary. So far, twice as many have chosen to vote Democratic ballots over Republican ones, reflecting the highly contested nature of that race. Unaffiliateds make up Colorado's largest voting bloc.

Overall, GOP returns led until election eve, something that has been true in past elections and likely amplified this time around because President Donald Trump doesn't have a strong primary opponent for his reelection bid.

The crowded Democratic primary field also likely had many of those voters holding on to their ballots until the final days to see if their candidate of choice would stay in all the way to Super Tuesday.

That fear came true for some when former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar bowed out of the race in the days before Super Tuesday. Voters who already returned a ballot marked for Buttigieg or Klobuchar do not get a do-over. However, ballots cast for the two late drop-outs will still be tallied, and they could even win delegates if they do well enough.

You can take a look at the day-out voting stats yourself here.

Editor's Note: This headline has been corrected to reflect that, because of the role of unaffiliated voters, more Democratic ballots have been returned, not that more registered Democrats have voted.