Political parties in Colorado are in the dumper. We’re in the midst of the busiest general election season, but voter registration data from the Secretary of State show a steady drip, drip, drip of Coloradans lost to both parties.

Of 65 State House districts, 32 have an Unaffiliated registration of 49% or higher. Of 35 State Senate districts, 20 have an Unaffiliated registration of 49% or higher.

The worst numbers are in the Colorado Springs metro region. HD17 and HD21 in south El Paso County have 55.6% Unaffiliated voter registrations. SD11 in the Springs’ south metro has 54.8% Unaffiliated voters. This low registration is concentrated in Widefield, Fountain and south Colorado Springs where Fort Carson is located.

Head south to Pueblo, and some of the steadier party registration numbers exist. In SD3, HD46, HD47 and HD62, Unaffiliated voters account for 42% to 43% of registered voters. Eastern Colorado shows similar numbers in the 41% to 43% range.

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Every district in the State House and Senate has increased its Unaffiliated registrations between January and June of this year. The total party losses lean slightly to the Democrats, but they have higher registration numbers than the GOP so they have more people to give up. The GOP can’t afford any more losses in voters, but the disruptions in the party have taken a toll, especially in the Springs metro.

A discussion with the Boulder County GOP chair, Tara Menza, captures what other data-driven analyses say about what’s bugging voters. She says when she ran for office in HD21, “every single unaffiliated voter I spoke with was sick of how radical the left was going and how radical the right was going and just wanted to get back to the basics of civil discourse and living together in a community peacefully without fear of being cancelled for beliefs.”

Menza’s statement matches data from Voter Voices, a survey of Colorado’s citizens conducted by numerous news agencies. Survey respondent Tim Samuelson from Denver says he wants politicians to “get over petty partisan bickering and actually do the job they were elected to do.” Another respondent had a vivid description of how he views partisanship. Politicians should be concerned with “how they plan to fix this mess, not what a jackass the other guy is. We already know that.”

Menza mentions primary elections in which Unaffiliated voters can choose which party’s elections to vote in have affected party recruitment. The effect of open primaries is Unaffiliated voters often have strong political beliefs and use these elections to game the system to improve the chances of the person who agrees with them. It’s smart voting but bad for party affiliation.

Other questions concern how parties operate to attract registered voters. Recently, both parties’ leaders have acted in ways that can discourage voters concerned about party integrity. On the GOP side, Dave Williams, GOP chair, used party funds and other resources to support his own ultimately losing campaign for the U.S. Congress. It was good voters rejected Williams’ blatant corruption. His behavior probably explains some of the deep erosion in GOP registrations in the Colorado Springs area Williams sought to represent.

Ongoing conflict in the GOP among the many GOP county chairs who want to unload Williams and the hard-right core of supporters surrounding him certainly doesn’t help the eroding party base. This collapse in the GOP has set the stage for messy actions in the majority party.

Typically, the Democratic Party remains neutral in primary elections. That was not the case this year when Gov. Jared Polis and numerous Democrats in Capitol leadership threw their support behind challenger candidates in order to remove irritating, too-progressive members from the House and Senate. The governor also threw his hearty imprimatur toward the losing candidate in the CD-2 State Board of Education race.

A Democratic PAC operated by Andy Kabza, husband of a state senator, threw hundreds of thousands of dollars into various races to defeat targeted progressive candidates. These actions had their desired effect, as most of the targeted candidates were defeated. But the effect may ultimately affect how many Democratic-leaning voters on the progressive side of the political spectrum align with or choose to participate in campaigns. Young voters in the Denver metro area who tend to support progressive policies are most at risk of deserting party politics.

This trend also hit youngish, one-term Democratic legislators who resigned from their seats or decided not to run again. Jennifer Parenti is the most recent House member to bow out of her race on the grounds there was too much sniping and backstabbing among colleagues.

Voter registration numbers don’t lie. Voters are un-affiliating and new registrations are not contributing to party growth. The time may soon arrive when the parties no longer have enough members to function as agents of democracy. What then?

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