The grassroots Republican party in Colorado is not having an identity crisis. If it wants to win in 2020, that’s a challenge.

Magellan Strategies, a GOP polling firm, has conducted two polls since the 2018 election: one right after the election of unaffiliated voters (UAFs) and the second in late January/early February 2019 on Republican voters who have voted in the GOP primary and/or general election. Then there was the ultimate poll of Colorado voters in November 2018.

The 2019 GOP poll shows that Republicans love President Donald Trump who has a 90 percent approval rating with 72 percent strongly approving. The most important issue for GOPers, by a large margin, is immigration. Among GOP primary voters, immigration ranks 48 percent as the top issue and among non-primary voters it ranks 40 percent.

Magellan’s post-election survey of UAFs shows how Democrats captured the Colorado House, Senate, governorship, and all statewide offices. Unaffiliated turnout was higher than either Democrats or Republicans at 893,436. Democrats underperformed UAFs by 70,000 votes and GOPers underperformed by 90,000 voters.

UAFs supported Gov. Jared Polis, according to the poll, because of his positions on education, healthcare, and the environment. UAFs who supported Stapleton liked his conservative positions on taxes and budget balancing. Few UAFs voted for Stapleton because he supported Trump or his anti-sanctuary city policy. Many more UAFs opposed Stapleton because he supported Trump.

Republicans love Trump’s wall concept with 88 percent overall positive support jumping to 99 percent of Trump voters. Shutting down government to support the wall came in slightly lower at 81 percent, but it had 96 percent support among Trump Republicans.

Republican voters believe they lost in 2018 due to the influx of out of state people, mainly from California and New York, into Colorado. “I think…people that have moved here have come from a very liberal state and have brought their politics with them,” said a Republican 35-44 year-old woman.

Guiding Republican lawmakers is the finding that Republicans prefer their candidates to stick to conservative principles rather than compromising on issues. Of traditional Republicans, 63 percent prefer a stick to your guns attitude; of Trump GOPers, the number rises to 79 percent.

This view shows up on one of Polis’s most important policy initiatives: full day kindergarten. Only 34 percent of Republicans support the policy against 62 percent who oppose.

The Red Flag bill to remove firearms from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others goes the other direction. Over 60 percent of GOPers support this bill. House minority leader Patrick Neville, however, is following Republican non-compromise principles on this one. In an appearance on the Dan Caplis radio program, he said that Republican leaders or other grassroots Republicans might go for a recall of Democratic legislators who vote for that bill, the sex education bill, and the national election vote bill.

That strategy worked in 2013 when Republicans recalled two Democratic state senators in Pueblo and Colorado Springs and pushed another Jeffco Democratic senator over a cliff to take control of the 2014 state Senate. Neville took his aggressive approach this week to back down state Sen. Brittany Pettersen over her prospective bill on supervised drug use sites in Denver.

Current voter registration numbers, however, shouldn’t give Republicans confidence that recall is a two trick pony. From January 2018 to January 2019, the GOP lost 4,190 active voter registrations in the state. In that same period, Democrats gained 36,000 voters and UAF’s increased by 133,000.

If 2018 predicts 2020 (and GOP leaders must hope it does not), then a significant majority of the new UAFs will break to the Democrats. Unless something goes seriously awry, Democratic policy positions appear to be much more in sync with Colorado’s voters.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.