4 ms·

Well, we're a very polarized red/blue state, a tech hub, and the source of most of the water for the entire southwest.

kyrra 3y ago
Colorado has not been a purple state in 8+ years and is going more solid blue by the year. In the 2022 election, there was one thought to be close statewide election. It was a blowout, 55.9% dem, 41.3% GOP. The 2020 presidential election had very similar results. https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/ https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/
- hesdeadjim 3y ago
  Aggregate stats are nice when it comes to presidential, but we still have a bunch of reps like Boebert who cause havoc in DC.
  - caseyohara 3y ago
    Aggregate stats give a clearer picture of statewide politics though. Boebert wasn't elected by the whole state, only the 3rd district. And we have two Democratic senators now. That's perhaps the best indicator that Colorado is hardly polarized.
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    Sure, but every US state has such a local split. It’s relative to the proportion and size of dense urban areas, and has been at least since the early aughts. But every “coastal liberal” state (or whatever the “blue state” signifier is) swings sharply conservative as you trek out to less populated areas, with very rare exception. And every “red state” has at least a small island that deviates leftish, even Wyoming.
    - narendasan 3y ago
      Clearly you haven't been to Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado
      - eyelidlessness 3y ago
        I haven’t, but a few searches seem to reinforce my point. What am I missing from afar?
        narendasan 3y ago
        Think of Denver (700k) vs. Colorado Springs(450k) like SF(800k) vs. Oakland (450k) but unlike Oakland which is __roughly__ an extension of SF politics, CO Springs is deeply conservative to Denver's deep liberalism. CO Springs is home to the Air Force Academy and a number of military installations which underlies its politics. Its a "dense urban area" whose politics happens to be conservative. The skew left or right in Colorado typically comes from voter turn out in other areas of the state, e.g. Arapahoe, Jefferson, Boulder, Douglas and the swing of independent voters which makes up 45% of the electorate.
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        There are cities which run conservative. Bakersfield comes to mind in California, also roughly the size of CS, at 403k population. The urban/rural alignment of liberal v. conservative politics is a good general rule of thumb. There are always exceptions. But even (or especially) in deeply-conservative states, cities tend to be far more liberal. Salt Lake City (Utah), Austin (Texas), and Atlanta (Georgia) are particularly strong examples.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
caseyohara 3y ago
Colorado used to be very polarized, but that's not so true anymore. It leans pretty strongly blue now: > Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a victory margin of 13.50%, an 8.6 percentage point improvement on Clinton's victory in the state four years prior, the strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the first time that it voted for a presidential candidate of either major party by a double-digit percentage since Ronald Reagan in 1984. > In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The results established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the past three election cycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado#:~:text=On%20the%20day%20of%20the,it%20voted%20for%20a%20presidential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
- epmatsw 3y ago
  It helps that the Colorado Republican party is about as ineffective of a political group as I've ever seen. If they were even moderately competent Boebert's district, Colorado Springs, and to a lesser extent the new district (Caraveo's) would be much redder than they voted the past cycle.
- method_capital 3y ago
  Good lord. Not voting for trump doesn't make us "blue".
- narendasan 3y ago
  The national political lens is probably the absolutely least informative way to understand Colorado politics. CO politics isn't just a miniature version of the national debate. Our governor is a libertarian in all but name. 96% of the bills in the legislature were bipartisan sponsored last year. 45% of the state is unaffiliated with a party and in 2022, the majority of them voted in the republican primary over the democratic one. The rest of the electorate is split down the middle D and R.

Colorado has not been a purple state in 8+ years and is going more solid blue by the year. In the 2022 election, there was one thought to be close statewide election. It was a blowout, 55.9% dem, 41.3% GOP. The 2020 presidential election had very similar results. https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/ https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/

hesdeadjim 3y ago
Aggregate stats are nice when it comes to presidential, but we still have a bunch of reps like Boebert who cause havoc in DC.
- caseyohara 3y ago
  Aggregate stats give a clearer picture of statewide politics though. Boebert wasn't elected by the whole state, only the 3rd district. And we have two Democratic senators now. That's perhaps the best indicator that Colorado is hardly polarized.
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  Sure, but every US state has such a local split. It’s relative to the proportion and size of dense urban areas, and has been at least since the early aughts. But every “coastal liberal” state (or whatever the “blue state” signifier is) swings sharply conservative as you trek out to less populated areas, with very rare exception. And every “red state” has at least a small island that deviates leftish, even Wyoming.
  - narendasan 3y ago
    Clearly you haven't been to Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado
    - eyelidlessness 3y ago
      I haven’t, but a few searches seem to reinforce my point. What am I missing from afar?
      - narendasan 3y ago
        Think of Denver (700k) vs. Colorado Springs(450k) like SF(800k) vs. Oakland (450k) but unlike Oakland which is __roughly__ an extension of SF politics, CO Springs is deeply conservative to Denver's deep liberalism. CO Springs is home to the Air Force Academy and a number of military installations which underlies its politics. Its a "dense urban area" whose politics happens to be conservative. The skew left or right in Colorado typically comes from voter turn out in other areas of the state, e.g. Arapahoe, Jefferson, Boulder, Douglas and the swing of independent voters which makes up 45% of the electorate.
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        There are cities which run conservative. Bakersfield comes to mind in California, also roughly the size of CS, at 403k population. The urban/rural alignment of liberal v. conservative politics is a good general rule of thumb. There are always exceptions. But even (or especially) in deeply-conservative states, cities tend to be far more liberal. Salt Lake City (Utah), Austin (Texas), and Atlanta (Georgia) are particularly strong examples.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

caseyohara 3y ago

Colorado used to be very polarized, but that's not so true anymore. It leans pretty strongly blue now: > Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a victory margin of 13.50%, an 8.6 percentage point improvement on Clinton's victory in the state four years prior, the strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the first time that it voted for a presidential candidate of either major party by a double-digit percentage since Ronald Reagan in 1984. > In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The results established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the past three election cycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado#:~:text=On%20the%20day%20of%20the,it%20voted%20for%20a%20presidential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...

epmatsw 3y ago
It helps that the Colorado Republican party is about as ineffective of a political group as I've ever seen. If they were even moderately competent Boebert's district, Colorado Springs, and to a lesser extent the new district (Caraveo's) would be much redder than they voted the past cycle.
method_capital 3y ago
Good lord. Not voting for trump doesn't make us "blue".
narendasan 3y ago
The national political lens is probably the absolutely least informative way to understand Colorado politics. CO politics isn't just a miniature version of the national debate. Our governor is a libertarian in all but name. 96% of the bills in the legislature were bipartisan sponsored last year. 45% of the state is unaffiliated with a party and in 2022, the majority of them voted in the republican primary over the democratic one. The rest of the electorate is split down the middle D and R.