The whole point of the convoluted way it was set up was to make it challenging for anyone who was not already involved in local party politics to participate in any meaningful way. Regular voters were definitely not the target audience for all these multiple stages of delegate selection of local Republican figures. They used to at least have a presidential straw poll too, as you mentioned, so the populace’s preferences for presidential nominee could be noted, but they cancelled that this time after Trump’s rise, because it might be too obvious how much the state convention was going against the wishes of the people.
Because people only got a chance to vote for very low-level local delegates instead of the presidential candidates, there is naturally no vote tally by candidate for the so-called Colorado caucuses. Every other state (except for ND, which likewise passed on a vote among the populace for the nominee) has vote totals from their caucus or primary. If CO had a real vote, then there would be a vote tally by presidential candidate for that state. CO does not and cannot have one, since they never had a vote. That’s also why the CO “caucuses” got next to no national coverage on Super Tuesday. Why would the press cover a bunch of little local elections at the CO “caucuses” when they had real elections for the presidential nominee to cover in many other states?
