Colorado voters were worried about how the state was handling its water issues long before this winter showed its true colors: brown and yellow.
In early December, a poll showed most Coloradans felt the state doesn’t have enough water to meet its needs a decade from now and the state isn’t doing enough about it. That was before two months of mostly dry and unseasonably warm temperatures left Colorado with its lowest snowpack since 1987.
“The snowpack right now is dismal. We’ve got water issues statewide, not just the Colorado River,” said Brian Jackson with EDF Action, the advocacy arm of the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups that paid for the poll. “We really looked at ways that the next governor and additional electeds can tackle water in a new and improved way.”
EDF Action, Western Resource Advocates Action Fund and Conservation Colorado paid for the survey, which was conducted in the first week of December. Keating Research, the Democratic firm based in Colorado that conducted the poll, talked to 800 likely 2026 voters.
Responses came in from across the state. People ages 18 and up, weighed in with men and women almost equally represented. About 45% were unaffiliated voters, while 29% were Democrats and 25% were Republicans. Most were white with college degrees and a total family income of $100,000 or more.
About 30% of the Coloradans who responded were mostly concerned about water issues related to population growth and development. About 17% ranked drought and the lack of water as their highest concern. Others, 11%, said cutting back on water use or making it more efficient was their single biggest issue, according to the results released Jan. 29.
The state is likely to face water shortages if it continues to have dry years, according to the 2023 Colorado Water Plan. Homes, yards, businesses and small industries have enough water now but could face a water supply gap of up to 740,000 acre-feet by 2050, especially with population growth and a warming climate, the report says. Colorado has 6 million people and could reach about 8.5 million by 2050.
One acre-foot roughly equals the annual water use of about two households.
Voters also weighed in on Colorado River issues, supporting negotiations and Colorado-led solutions.
The Colorado River Basin includes western Colorado, but the river’s water goes all over the state. After over 25 years of drought and shrinking water supplies, the basin’s water storage is at an all-time low. Seven states, including Colorado, are racing against time to figure out how to manage it in the future before the current management rules expire this fall.
About 78% of people polled said they wanted to see Colorado negotiate an agreement in which each basin state makes concessions and all states have a fair share of the water. An even larger share of Democratic primary voters, 88%, supported the idea.
The groups paid for the poll in part to make water a bigger issue in the governor’s race and to guide candidates on the best way to talk about the issue, Jackson said.
Most Coloradans, 67%, agreed that Colorado should be a leader, stand firm and require other states to do more to conserve water. Only 24% aligned with a different stance: The reason there is a crisis with the Colorado River is because California and Arizona are taking too much water
(In addition to Colorado, California and Arizona, four other Western states use Colorado River water: New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.)
To Jackson, that meant voters were fed up with the “blame game.”
“Part of the surprise was the voters didn’t want to see Colorado fight. They didn’t want to see the next governor or leaders of Colorado play the blame game,” Jackson said. “They really wanted Colorado to lead by example.”
The poll took place mere weeks into the snow season. By Dec. 10, snowfall statewide leveled off until early January storms dropped snow on some regions of Colorado. Even with small boosts here and there, snow in the mountains has been slow to accumulate this year. As of Thursday, the statewide snowpack was at 55% of its 30-year norm — and that’s a problem.
In all, 19 downstream states get some of their water from Colorado’s snowpack. Each spring, Colorado’s snow melts, soaks into soils and reaches rivers that head out of the state in every direction, like the Colorado, Rio Grande and South Platte.
City water utilities have plans for dry and warm years like this, so residents will still have plenty of drinking water. But water for sprinklers and lawns — plus irrigation water for crops — often ends up restricted in a record dry year like this one.
When it comes to water issues, “the next governor and electeds across the state are going to be thrown into the deep end,” Jackson said.