WASHINGTON, D.C. – Nearly half of all young registered voters in La Plata County, ages 18-25, are independent.
Campaigns target university campuses, and they have reached out to young voters, specifically young Democrat or young Republican leaders who seek campaign experience. However, many young voters are hesitant to affiliate with political parties.
The trend to avoid party affiliation spreads beyond La Plata County, where 36 percent of all registered voters are independent.
According to a Pew Research Center study released this summer, voters are dividing on a multitude of issues, creating a spectrum of stances between Democrats and Republicans. Within each party, many voters disagree on particular parts of their candidate’s platform.
Young independent voters are not concerned with the party platform but with the particular issues candidates are known for.
Nicole Pease, 21, a Durango voter, canvassed for Planned Parenthood, strongly opposes the Second Amendment and is focused on education, the environment and human rights. Despite her involvement, Pease has always been an independent voter.
“Well, I really don’t want to be affiliated to a party, to vote based on party loyalty,” Pease said. “I want to vote on the issues.”
Her parents were independent while she grew up, though Pease said her mother registered as a Democrat in 2008.
Other young voters choose to be independent because they cannot agree with either party’s platform.
“I believe both sides are wrong, basically,” sad Kyle Cahall, 25, of Durango.
Cahall voted in the last presidential election, and, as a recent college graduate, he is most concerned with education. Cahall, like Pease, said voters need to research candidates instead of simply affiliating with political parties, but he chooses not to vote in the midterm election.
“I just feel like I haven’t really heard enough from each side of the candidacy aside from the attack ads,” Cahall said.
Many independent voters are echoed by Danielle Ghear, 25, of Durango, when she says she cannot rely on the ads ran by candidates. She stays informed through personal research.
“If you actually read and research candidates, you find their track records with issues that matter to you,” Ghear said.
When asked what is most important to her in a candidate, Ghear said she considers “the things that will be carried out that (candidates) are promising.”
Other young independent voters have not picked sides because they do not feel informed enough about the Republican and Democratic parties. Many independents are in a similar situation as Chloe Casey, 25, of Durango, who plans to vote but has yet to study issues for the midterms.
“I haven’t had time to figure out that part yet,” Casey said about the individual candidates.
Many voters, such as Casey, feel overwhelmed by politics. Casey admits she may not be “the best person to talk to about the election.”
Carina McCormick, 23, of Durango, voted before as independent but does not plan to vote in the midterm elections because she has not been following this election cycle.
“I guess if I’m not doing a lot of research, I don’t feel that I can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a candidate,” McCormick said.
Overall, it seems that young voters feel burdened by the task to stay politically informed.
To help engage college students politically, many campuses have been welcoming different candidates on campus.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has sponsored a grass-roots competition between University of Colorado, Boulder, and Colorado State University to see which school can get the most student voters to the polls.
At Fort Lewis College, students received emails throughout the semester to encourage them to register and to vote. Campus-wide announcements took place in September and at the beginning and end of October.
In addition, different groups are allowed to come to campus to engage students about voter registration.
“I think we’ve had someone up here, be it for registering to vote or for campaigning, almost every week since school started,” said Mitch Davis, spokesman for Fort Lewis College.
As one-third of FLC students are out-of-state, they are encouraged to cast absentee ballots, and they also have the option to apply for Colorado residency to vote in-state.
Pease, studying in Annapolis, Maryland, is getting ready to mail her absentee ballot and said that it is very difficult to be stay up-to-date on local politics with her heavy course load.
“It’s very tricky to stay informed, but my parents raised me in this way,” she said.
Pease relies partly on Facebook to follow the important political conversations that her Colorado-based friends are talking about.
igheorghiu@durangoherald.com. Iulia Gheorghiu is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.
