High cost of living and lack of affordable housing continue to be the top concerns among Colorado’s Latino voters, with many saying they have not seen enough action from elected officials. 

That’s according to a new statewide survey of 1,600 registered voters released Wednesday, Sept. 18, by Colorado Latino Policy Agenda, a public polling group. It marks the fourth annual survey from the organization, which consists of Latino advocacy groups and a public firm conducting the largest polling of Latino voters in the state. 

This year’s results, which included responses from hundreds of voters in all eight of Colorado’s congressional districts, closely mirror last year’s poll, in which 3-in-4 Latino voters said they have not seen progress on affordable housing in their communities. 

“After four years of research, the trends of economic challenges facing Colorado Latinos is well established,” said Alex Sanchez, executive director for the Western Slope-based Latino advocacy group Voces Unidas, speaking during a virtual press briefing. “Action from officials, at all levels local, state and federal, is overdue.”

The top three issues at the state level for voters were all economic. Forty-seven percent said their No. 1 issue was addressing the cost of living and inflation followed by improving wages and income (37%) and creating affordable and attainable housing (24%). 

Additionally, 55% of voters said government and elected officials haven’t been effective at addressing affordable housing in their communities compared to 39% who said they have. 

“When we think about affordable and subsidized housing programs we think about teachers and first responders. But Latinos and Latinas are probably the least represented groups in those professions,” Sanchez said in an interview following the briefing. “We need affordable housing for the construction worker, for the roofer, for the back-of-house workers up and down the valleys.”

A majority of surveyed voters said their finances are tight, with 56% saying they had $1,000 or less in their savings to use for emergencies. 

Gabriel Sanchez — whose national polling firm, BSP Research, conducted the study — said he expects that number to be significantly higher if looking at the full Latino population and not just registered voters.

“So it gives us a strong word of caution that a lot of the large segment of the Latino population in Colorado still needs financial support, whether that is through direct cash payments, tax breaks, etc. to be able to weather a continuing struggle economically,” he said. 

The report comes in the wake of another statewide survey of Latino residents released Sept. 9 by the Colorado Health Foundation. It too found economic and housing issues to be the top concerns for Latino residents. Of 506 residents surveyed, 92% said the cost of housing was an extremely or very serious problem while 85% said the rising cost of living was extremely or very serious. 

Both the Colorado Health Foundation and Latino Policy Agenda reports identified a number of other issues, with the latter showing strong continued support for abortion access. 

The rest of the Latino Policy Agenda report gives insight into how Latino voters would vote on various topics that are trending as the General Election approaches. 

Of the 1,600 registered voters surveyed, 77% were in favor of reproductive health care regardless of immigration status, and 68% were in favor of allowing insurance and government plans like Medicaid to cover abortions just like other health services. 

Sixty-one percent of voters were in support of Amendment 79, a Colorado ballot question that, if approved by voters, would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution. 

“We’ve known that restricting access to safe, legal abortion puts people in dangerous situations and goes against the desires of Latino voters in our state,” said Dusti Gurule, president and CEO of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Right, which commissioned the poll alongside Voces Unidas. 

State initiatives supported by surveyed voters were: regulations to protect outdoor workers from extreme heat and cold (85% in favor); creating a new state fund to address poor water quality in mobile home parks (79% in favor) and improving antidiscrimination protections of Latinos who access public services in county governments that pass anti-sanctuary-city resolutions (70%). 

At the federal level, voters signaled support for immigration reform, with 75% in favor of increasing legal immigration through family- and employment-based visas. 

While voters identified a litany of issues, more said they felt better about the direction of the state and their local communities compared to the U.S. as a whole. 

Fifty-one percent said the country was going in the wrong direction while 39% said the state of Colorado was going in the wrong direction. More voters, 50%, said their counties were going in the right direction compared to 35% who said the opposite. 

“For better or worse, Latinos in Colorado perceive that their state and local governments are doing a better job of being responsive to their issues and concerns than the federal government is,” said Sanchez with BSP Research. “We have a saying as political scientists: all politics is local.”