By Floyd Ciruli
The swing state has swung. On Tuesday, Colorado completed an extraordinary journey across the political color spectrum, from a once reliably Republican red state to purple to a now deep Democratic blue. The recent decade of Republican dominance peaked in 2002 when the party saw Gov. Bill Owens re-elected with 63 percent of the vote, Wayne Allard won re-election to U.S. Senate (joining Republican Ben Campbell), a win of Colorado’s new 7th congressional seat, and continued control of the state legislature.
A mere six years later, Democrats now have the governorship, both U.S. Senate seats, both houses of the state legislature, and five of the seven congressional seats. With the help of Barack Obama’s ground force, Democrats erased a 170,000 Republican voter registration advantage and are now dead even. The icing, of course: the state’s nine electoral votes go to Obama.
A forerunner of trends
What became clear this November is that Colorado has become the forerunner of trends that have benefited the Democratic Party nationally, and that is getting attention. For Democrats, the game-changing factors in Colorado included a shift from a tax-limits agenda to the economy and how to pay for government services; selecting more moderate and less partisan candidates and finally – and maybe more importantly – beating Republicans in the money game, raising millions and spending it smartly. This Colorado phenomenon has been described in popular works, such as Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker article, “The Code of the West,” and Fred Barne’s Weekly Standard article, “The Colorado Model,” and is similar to the factors that now benefit Democrats nationally.
At the same time that Democrats were ascending in Colorado, the national Republican brand was collapsing, and local Republicans were divided with their moderate and business wings alienated from the fiscal conservative and religious rank-and-file.
A good laboratory
With one-third of its registrants claiming independent status, and another third of the partisan electorate only weakly attached to their respective parties, Colorado is a good laboratory for observing these changes, especially in the presidential campaign. For example, not just any Democrat can win in Colorado. After John McCain was identified as the presumptive nominee, polling consistently showed Obama ahead of McCain, and Hillary Clinton running behind both (although the margin was modest and fluctuated depending on the news from the primaries). Obama clearly was a better fit for Colorado’s more independent-minded voters with his post-racial, post-partisan, change-oriented message.
Although Colorado gave Obama (7%) a larger margin than Bush in 2004 (5%), the state was competitive. Obama held a polling lead most of the summer, but it was seldom beyond the margin of error, and McCain went ahead (again modesty; usually within the margin of error) when national and international issues and events benefited him. At the end of July, voters surged toward McCain due to energy prices, offshore drilling and national security issues, and there was a brief post-Republican National Convention bounce.
Much of the volatility in Colorado’s race reflects unaffiliated voters moving between the candidates. When independents were split 50-50 between the candidates, McCain took the lead, but as the race had progressed beyond September 15 (the beginning of the financial crisis news), a Democratic advantage between 10 and 20 points developed and Obama moved ahead 5 to 10 points.
GOP loyalty dips
While more voters were saying they identified with Democrats, loyalty to the Republican Party was dropping. Upwards of 15 percent of Colorado Republicans voted for the 2004 Democratic Senate candidate and 2006 gubernatorial candidate. Combined with the independent voter trend, it has doomed recent Republican candidates, including the Republican senate candidate, Bob Schaffer.
Add to that Hispanic Democratic Party voters, Colorado’s most underappreciated voter bloc. Between Federico Peña’s 1983 and 1987 mayoral races and Ken Salazar’s 2004 Senate race, they have dramatically increased their registration and voter participation from 6 percent statewide in the mid-‘80s to 13 percent, according to exit polls on Tuesday, supporting Obama 3 to 1.
Finally, a quick look at the Colorado political map shows former Republican counties, like Jefferson and Larimer, are now battlegrounds, which Democrats regularly win, and even the Republican stronghold of Arapahoe has now backed Democrats Ken Salazar, Bill Ritter and Barack Obama in the last three elections.
Some Republican leaders argue that Colorado has always been a competitive state and that this is just a cycle that will pass. That may be, but the Republican bench has been severely depleted with retirements, term limits and election losses; and, until the party addresses the split between its moderate and its fiscal and social conservative wings and finds some significant new sources of money, it will remain on the defensive.
Meanwhile, Democrats should not see this election as a mandate for their traditional liberal or organized labor agenda. The party’s standard bearer, Bill Ritter, lost his severance tax initiative and the effort to alter TABOR limits was soundly buried by the poor economy and voters continued distrust of government.
Although organized labor benefited from a divided business community, the right-to-work and paycheck protection initiatives received considerable support, and limits on campaign contribution from sole-source contractors and labor unions passed.
The challenge
Most important, Democrats are subject to the same challenge as Republicans; that is, how to attract and maintain support of Colorado’s weak partisans and independents.
In all, 2008 was Colorado’s most intensive political year in a generation. Not since 1974 have Democrats done as well. The Democratic National Convention and repeated presidential candidate visits highlighted Colorado’s new battleground status. It is unlikely Colorado will escape presidential campaign advertising and visits in 2012 and beyond. Colorado is in play.
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Floyd Ciruli, founder of Ciruli Associates, is a Denver-based pollster and political analyst for 9News and KOA Radio.
Printed in Rocky Mountain News, 11-8-08
