October 21, 2016 11:36 AM UTC

Colorado Republicans Can Start to Panic Now

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• by: Colorado Pols

Longtime Colorado political journalist Ernest Luning has been keeping track of ballot return figures via his Twitter account. This is not good for Republicans:

Dems keep lead in CO statewide ballot returns thru 10/20: D-18,867; R-12,570; U-10,203 #copolitics 1/5 https://t.co/PmONrsT29Q

— Ernest Lee Luning (@eluning) October 21, 2016

The last time that Democrats were this far ahead of Republicans in Colorado in early voting returns was…well, maybe never.

The biggest fear for the GOP in 2016 has always been that a terrible top of the ticket — headlined by Donald Trump and Darryl Glenn — would be so disinteresting/disgusting that otherwise reliable Republican voters just wouldn’t bother to vote at all. Right-leaning political pundits have been saying for months that Republican voters could save down-ballot candidates by splitting their ticket at the polls, but that was assuming Republican voters would actually, you know, fill in the bubbles on their ballot.

If this trend continues in Colorado through Election Day, Republican candidates are going to be wiped out across the board. Perhaps the Trump campaign would have been better off staffing their field offices with people who are old enough to drive a car.