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June 23, 2013 10:08 AM UTC

Colorado: Less Purple, More Blue, And No Stopping It

  • 31 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Fort Collins Coloradoan's Patrick Malone put out an excellent, in-depth look at the state of Colorado politics looking ahead to 2014 this weekend, as well as a summary of Democratic gains made in this state since 2004–and prospects for continued success in a state whose demographics have permanently changed in the last two decades. A few excerpts, but make sure you click through and read this whole story:

Voter behavior provides the most obvious evidence. Electors in 2006 banned gay marriage, rejected civil unions by another name and turned down a measure to legalize marijuana.

Fast forward to 2012, when polls showed 65 percent of Coloradans favored allowing civil unions for gay couples, and 55 percent of voters approved an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.

Add Democrats’ most prosperous decade of election performances in a half-century, and it is undeniable that the longtime swing state has become a bluer shade of purple, longtime observers of Colorado politics agree…

“People are fleeing states like California, big cities like Detroit and Chicago, and coming to Colorado, for the promise of opportunity and outdoor recreation, and importing their politics,” said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

He doubts the demographic advantage that the liberal ideology enjoys today is sustainable. Call predicts newcomers to the state will eventually grow disenchanted with the policies of the Democrats they elect.

Another Republican, retired professor Bob Loevy who served on the reapportionment commission in 2011, doesn't agree with Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call.

“Fifty years ago, the backbone of the Republican Party was upper-class people with good educations that mostly lived in the suburbs — old-timers called them ‘Eisenhower Republicans,’ ” Loevy said. “They sustained the party for years. Under the (President George W.) Bush administration, emphasis on those key social issues began driving upscale and well-educated people out of the Republican Party. This was particularly true of their children. That’s the main reason, in my view, for the decline of the Republican Party in Colorado.”

There's plenty here for our readers to discuss. Let us say again that the emphasis on social wedge issues Loevy talks about above continues apace in today's Republican Party, where despite warnings of long-term peril, politically suicidal abortion bans and killing overwhelmingly popular immigration reform measures dominate the agenda. The battle over gun safety bills this year, and the fallout as Republicans dump money and emotion into "making an example" of circumstantially vulnerable Democrats, won't be enough to reverse this larger and more fundamental problem the Colorado GOP has created for itself. As with these other issues where Republicans planted their flag, there is simply not enough of a base to overcome the demographic sea changes occurring all around them. In fact, as the face of Colorado's electorate changes, these "strengths" become liabilities.

As we've said, we don't know what the road back to a majority for the GOP here is. There may not be one.

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31 thoughts on “Colorado: Less Purple, More Blue, And No Stopping It”

  1. A few of Copols readers might have seen the political cartoon this week where three children (Hispanic, African-American and Chinese I think) address an aging white male with the request, "Don't let us bother you, we don't have anything against minoritie," or some such.

    The Republican Party needs a serious correction. As long as the current leadership and voices hang around, the worse it will be for the long term viability of the party.

    All I can say is, this current bunch needs to go, and the sooner the better for everyone. I do believe the roots of this current group may be deeper than we know. I wish I understood what's going on.

     

    I applaud journalists like Greenwald, Michael Hastings, and the others who speak truth to power and ask the tough questions that a healthy Republic requires.

  2. <sarcasm>Big whoop! They actually had an article about politics outside the political season.</sarcasm> The article highlights how little discussion the mainstream press gives to these issues. If you ask me, the article was awfully horse-racy rather than informative. 

    I only rate the article a C, and a big fat F for the headline "What's behind Colorado's hard left turn?" (What hard left turn? how about hard middle-of-the-road turn. "Hard Left"? I don't think that word means what you think it means!) Aside from a few statistics and comments from a single pollster and single poltiical scientist, there were three extra pages of mostly insidery-politics. You know, the same old Earth-is-round vs Earth-is-flat giving equal space to Rick Palacio for the Democrats and Ryan Call trolling for the Republican Party PR machine.

    You get better analysis and better links to opinion polls and references on a liberal-leaning blog like this one. 

    1. And what's with the idea that Colorado became liberal through in-migration from California? Didn't Douglas Bruce come from California? 

      Yes, Colorado has had a lot of in-migration, but the liberal shift is easy to explain simply by statistically adding up the demographic inflow: latino, youthful, college educated, urban. And subtracting the demographic outflow: old white farmers dying off. Basically, Colorado has become much more urban and much more urbane, which has swamped the population in rural agriculture & extraction.

      This reflects the country as a whole. Aside from ethnic pockets of Mormons and scotch-irish from Appalachia to Texas, the US has become much, much more liberal. Simply average in the average inflowing demographic, and there is no reason to wonder.

      1. For decades we let the GOP define what's left, right and center. Hard left now means a turn toward what used to be Eisenhower Republican. Anything more lefty than that is socialist/communist. Moderate is any rock ribbed conservative who isn't a complete wacko on social/religious issues and doesn't forward cartoons of the first family as gorillas.

        No matter how conservative your are, if you don't actually run around saying out loud that women don't get pregnant when they're "legitimately" raped, you too can qualify as moderate. Of course, if you're a Republican you probably don't want to (unless you want to be elected President) because "moderate" means you're a "RINO". Kind of makes getting elected President as Republican in good standing a catch 22 these days.

    2. For decades we let the GOP define what's left, right and center. Hard left now means a turn toward what used to be Eisenhower Republican. Anything more lefty than that is socialist/communist. Moderate is any rock ribbed conservative who isn't a complete wacko on social/religious issues and doesn't forward cartoons of the first family as gorillas.

      No matter how conservative your are, if you don't actually run around saying out loud that women don't get pregnant when they're "legitimately" raped, you too can qualify as moderate. Of course, if you're a Republican you probably don't want to (unless you want to be elected President) because "moderate" means you're a "RINO". Kind of makes getting elected President as Republican in good standing a catch 22 these days.

      1. Sorry about double post. Yesterday things weren't just slow but also wacky. My post just sat there after I hit "post comment".  No thinking, no nothing.  When I tried again I got a message that I had already posted the comment but it still didn't show up. Logged off, which took a long time, and there was my comment twice. Sure hope things are getting resolved today.

          1. Sounds like a good title for a sci-fi flick. The Conversion.  Well it's Monday afternoon.  I'm not seeing any dramatic improvement yet.  Let's see how long this takes to post.

    3. Hello Park Hill! Nice to find a fellow Princess Bride fan on this site. Are there any more of us here? And you're right. This piece told me nothing I couldn't learn from Pols;or for that matter, the Post.

  3. It's hilarious that Ryan Call cites imigration from overwhelmingly Democratic regions as a reason why Colorado will become more conservative.

    1. Ryan entered the delta some time ago, had a good time sightseeing in Giza, and is now cruising through Abusir, Dahshur, etc.   On to Hermopolis !

  4. Ryan Call implies the actual answer to the GOP electoral woe:  If only they would nominate legimate real Republicans.The problem is the mainstream libberal media make it all but impossible for true conservatives to run, so the resultant nominees are too moderate or lefty. Hence they lose.

    What the R's need are more pure conservative candidates. That way they can win over the lefties who moved to Colorado in the past twenty million years.

    1. The Republican takeaway from 2012 could very well be that Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough.

      Denver and Boulder have been solidly Democratic for as long as I can remember. The real political shift has occurred in the Denver suburbs and Boulder bedroom communities. The GOP's time honored tradition of "God, Guns, and Gays" isn't going to cut in anymore–they need to change if they want to be competitive in the Denver-Boulder Metro Area.

       

      1. The Republican takeaway from 2012 could very well be that Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough.

        There are many who think that. They are the ones who think it is "their" country…  They mostly dwell inside one old movie or another…one old prejudice or another.

        They are the moral extension of the "Southern Strategy", in which the churches of the south, and by extension, the rural communities they influence,  became a political tool wielded by an industrial machine that understood how to motivate a voting block.

        I think the Southern Strategy has about run its course. The Republican operatives can see that demographic is failing them because it is getting old and dying…and didn't make enough babies to guarantee any longer a white majority in this country. That time honored tradition you mention is still out there…and it is beginning to panic…

        1. Duke Cox,

          I agree and would point out that the wiser heads in the GOP can see the trainwreck that will come if the party doesn't change soon. However, who controls the party?  I can't given a definitive answer but it seems to be the older, white (largely rural) base. Anybody who doesn't buy the hardline risks getting effectively forced out.  I wouldn't consider Senator Marco Rubio to be a moderate. As much as I disagree with him I do think he's sincere on wanting an immigration bill, and clearly gets the demographic problems facing the GOP. The result? Threats of a primary challenge. I think things will get worse for the GOP before they get better.    

  5. BUT, what about the poll highlighted here back on June 13?  

    http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/colorado/release-detail?ReleaseID=1907

    It basically said that HIckenlooper needed to come out of the Denver Metro area with more than the 51% reported by the poll.  Now, there was an analysis, at Colorado Pols, suggesting that the Republicans were over -represented.  Be that as it may, how did everyone forget about that poll…scarely a week after it was published?

    1. it is not forgotten. This diary is less about Hick than the state of the 2 parties overall in the state. That the poll was remarked on in the 8th post indicates that it is not forgotten. Hick will likely get 60% or more along front range

      1. I missed the reference in the 8th post as the source of Ryan's Call's remark wasn't identified…

        The two polls or reports are in direct contradiction about the political direction of Colorado…..I am not one to dismiss any information.  

          1. Or the article doesn't lionize Republicans or makes them seem ordinary.  Only "Super Republicans Will Dominate Soon" articles are faithfully believed by Eeyore.

  6. Colorado part of a larger picture.

    A thoughtful recent analysis in The Atlantic discusses how the central political divide happening accross the US is between growing and consolidating urban regions (pop >100K) and diminishing rural areas.  Colorado is one of many examples where Denver anchors an urbanizing Front Range region.  A striking example is Texas where all the major urban areas are Democratic despite extreme conservative rural areas.  The growing urban population, even in red states, is inexorably swinging the politics more Democratic.  The author says, Liberals don't make cities; cities make liberals.

    Fear this, Republicans.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/red-state-blue-city-how-the-urban-rural-divide-is-splitting-america/265686/

    1. The are a some GOP wiser heads that realize this a problem; however, I don't expect them to prevail any time soon. City-bashing continues to be a time-honored tradition, and one that helps bring out the (largely rural) base.

       

    2. I think this is true RavenDawg. Just in the last 20 years I've watched Arapahoe, Jefferson and even Douglas counties turn bluer and bluer (and I don't think it's because they're holding their collective breath waiting for their Republican champion.) The hard-core Republican base in the state has migrated to what I call "the outer-ring suburbs", i.e. Elbert, Park, etc. I  also think there's an element of simple rebellion by the younger generation, against the prudish, ungenerous, punitive religious upbringing they endured. I know several young people (mid-20s) who are leftish partly to make their parents' hair fall out.

  7. As long as the Republicans continue to celebrate ignorance and continue moving rightward Colorado will continuing trending blue.That said, the Democrats need to keep their guard up and take all opposition seriously. Its hubris to think that there is such a thing as a permanent majority.

    2. Democrats need to stayed focused on crafting and passing legislation that makes government work.  The best politics is good government.  Republicans have never figured that one out.

    3. Of course there's no such thing as a permanent majority. For one thing the present state of the Republican Party isn't permanent. But it will take while to turn the big lumbering thing around so while they're failing to make much progress there and demographics that don't favor their present incarnation are marching on,  Dems should do their best to take the opportunity to make hay while the sun shines. It never does shine on anyone forever. Just ask Karl Rove.

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