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Fort Collins tells a misleading story. Residents often boast about local breweries, Patagonia jackets, community engagement, volunteer work or city council positions. With bikes, open spaces, recycling bins and Colorado State University’s campus, it’s easy to assume that Fort Collins is a liberal city. It’s a common first impression, and it’s not entirely wrong.
But what feels true and what actually shows up in voting patterns aren’t always the same.
About 64.5% of Fort Collins residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. The median resident age is 30.9 — younger than Colorado’s 37.9 average and the U.S. average of 39.1 — and the city has made long-term commitments to sustainability and transportation in its Climate Action Plan, which includes targets like 80% below 2005 emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.
These traits often correlate with progressive voting in the national storyline. Based on that image alone, people assume the politics in Fort Collins follow a predictable pattern. But general demographics aren’t the same thing as political alignment, and the voter registration numbers reflect that.
In Larimer County, the largest group of registered voters isn’t Democratic or Republican. A little over half of active voters, about 52%, are unaffiliated. Democrats account for around 24%, and Republicans about 22%. So instead of calling Fort Collins a liberal city, it’s more accurate to call it a centrist one. Most people here haven’t actually picked a party, at least not formally.
Local politics reflect that setup. City council and mayoral races are nonpartisan, with no party labels on the ballot. As of November 2025, Fort Collins uses ranked-choice voting, which nudges candidates to appeal broadly rather than to a narrow base. Within that system, you don’t win by focusing on one side; you win by not alienating too many people.
In fact, the winner of the last mayoral race, Emily Francis, ended with 53.31% of the votes after multiple rounds. It wasn’t a landslide win, but rather a gradual accumulation of second- and third-choice votes.
“The city’s branding emphasizes progressivism, but actual voting behavior is more cautious. There’s movement, but it’s incremental.”
The same tone shows up in national races. Larimer County backed Joe Biden in 2020 but only with 55.6% of the vote — not with the runaway margins you see in places like Boulder at 76.5%. It was a liberal lean, but not a clean sweep by any means. Similarly, in 2024, Larimer cast 57.33% of its vote for Kamala Harris, compared to Boulder’s significantly higher percentage of 76.49%.
And the CSU effect is real, but it’s not everything. Yes, the campus is big, accounting for 34,218 students in a city of 170,924 people, but students vote inconsistently in local races; many of them are new to town, registered in other cities and counties or not dialed into municipal issues. CSU students shape more of the culture than they do the vote.
So why does the myth of Fort Collins as a progressive enclave persist? People like the idea of Fort Collins being progressive. It sounds good — a place that’s environmentally conscious, socially aware and intellectually thoughtful. And some of that is real; you hear it in conversations, see it in city branding and feel it in parts of the culture, but it’s more complicated than that.
Residents care about sustainability, and they also love their trucks. They support social causes, but they also want their property values to stay up. They talk about community, but they still want their own space.
So the truth isn’t that Fort Collins is left-wing or right-wing; it’s that we’re constantly finding balance. People want a local government that works, but not one that’s overly involved in their lives. Voters here consistently choose moderate options rather than major ones. The city’s branding emphasizes progressivism, but actual voting behavior is more cautious. There’s movement, but it’s incremental.
And it makes sense. Fort Collins is a city of highly educated individuals; it has universities, labs, engineers, teachers and those who actually read. People are used to thinking stuff through, weighing pros and cons and not just jumping on a party line. So the politics end up looking like that, too.
Reach Maci Lesh at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
