The View From Colorado: Canada, Trade and North American Co-operation
The View From Colorado: Canada, Trade and North American Co-operation
Polling Report | Summer 2026
By Diya Jiang
In recent months, the relationship between Canada and the United States has been renegotiated, argued over and reshaped. In Canada, conversations surrounding tariffs, trade retaliation and the future of the bilateral relationship have dominated headlines, boardrooms, coffee shops, dinner tables and political debate for months. This report asks a simple question: what do Colorado residents, in a place without the obvious, front-of-mind stake a border state has, make of the relationship?
KEY FINDINGS
- Colorado’s Priorities: Cost of living and housing (87 per cent) dominate Colorado’s list of community priorities, while cross-border trade barely registers at all.
- Favourability: Coloradans hold more favourable views of Canada than the national average. But the warmth is split by party: 46 per cent of Republicans hold a favourable view versus 92 per cent of Democrats, though Republicans still lean favourable on balance
- Support for Trade: Coloradans support trade, with majorities opposing tariffs on Canadian goods and supporting CUSMA. Rural Colorado is measurably more protectionist than urban Colorado, most starkly on tariffs (31 per cent support versus 11 per cent).
- Bilateral Co-operation: A clear majority of Coloradans surveyed support engagement with Canada and Canadian provinces. Sixty-six per cent say Colorado should strengthen or maintain ties with Canada, compared with only seven per cent who want to reduce dependence.
- Looking Ahead: Republicans are the most positive about the U.S.-Canada relationship today (20 per cent positive) and Democrats the least (10 per cent), though the gap is not statistically significant at this sample size. However, when asked about the relationship in 10 years, Democrats become the most optimistic by far (60 per cent), a swing more consistent with a reaction to the current political moment than with lasting pessimism about the relationship itself.
Survey Partner
The surveys were conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.
The Colorado Research
The New North America Initiative is conducting polling, focus group and iterative opinion research to help better understand the U.S.-Canada relationship at the grassroots level. Look out for further research soon.
More on our polling work: explore our national omnibus polling research from Spring 2026 exploring the U.S. and Canada relationship.
Our Methodology
The New North America Initiative (NNAI) is developing a framework upon which to build a new era of co-operation within our shared continent and builds on prior efforts to align foreign policy more closely with community-level experience.
Our work deepens and expands this approach to the Canada–U.S. relationship and broader continental co-operation. It grounds the research in community-defined problems to understand cross-border relationships in their own terms, rather than applying nationally defined priorities or external assumptions about what issues should matter across borders.