Capital Review

If you’re 40 or older, today’s Colorado is very different politically than the state where you grew up — assuming you grew up here.

Except for Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater in 1964, no Democrat won more than 45 percent in Colorado between 1952 and 2000.

When Bill Clinton won Colorado in 1992 (with 40 percent in a three-way race), we became a “swing state” in presidential races through 2008. Three of those elections were decided by less than five percent.

Republicans’ most decisive win in that era was George W. Bush by 8.4 percent in 2000. Ranked by margin of victory, Colorado was then 19th most-Republican state, darker red than Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida or Iowa.

Oh, how times have changed.

Although Bush won again in 2004, his margin slipped to 4.7 percent, bucking the national trend. Colorado fell to 26th among red states. In hindsight, that election was a warning to Republicans who haven’t won a presidential contest here since.

The narrowest of those Democrat wins came in 2016 when Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by 4.9 percent. Clinton’s margin of victory made Colorado the 17th most-favorable state for Democrats.

Then came the deluge.

Trump lost here by 13.5 percent in 2020, and Colorado moved up to 14th among blue states — more blue than New Mexico or Minnesota.

This year, Trump narrowed his margin here to 11 percent, but that modest improvement paled next to gains in New Jersey (from 16 percent in 2020 to five percent) and New York (23 percent to 11.8 percent). In fact, Colorado gave Democrats their 11th-best margin of victory, equal to solidly-blue Illinois and barely behind New York

Why does Trump attract persuadable voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin but seem to repel them in Colorado?

Following the 2016 election, Magellan Strategies, a local polling firm, sought to answer that question. Examining large counties in Michigan and Wisconsin, Magellan found that in counties where the economy was struggling and median incomes were lower, Trump out-performed Mitt Romney’s totals from 2012. But in large counties where median incomes were higher, Trump under-performed Romney.

The same holds true in Colorado, but our heavily-populated counties tend to be more prosperous and so less fertile for Trump. Yet even in Colorado, the exception proves the rule. Pueblo County, the blue-collar former Democratic stronghold, voted narrowly for Trump in both 2016 and 2024. In Adams County, with the lowest median income in the Denver metro area, Trump lost by far less than in more affluent counties.

That trend applies in two of the largest Republican counties, Douglas and El Paso:

Douglas has the State’s highest median income, and Romney won there by 26 percent in 2012; Trump won by 18 percent in 2016 and seven percent in 2020 and 2024. Population growth contributes to this trend. From 2012 to 2024, Democrat candidates for president gained 49,000 votes in Douglas County while Republicans gained just 23,000.

In El Paso, Trump out-performed Romney, winning by 22 percent in 2016. But his margin slipped to 9.8 percent by 2024. Since 2012, Democrat votes for president have grown by 54,000, compared to Republicans’ 34,000.

Another Colorado peculiarity: Trump’s message resonates less here with the very same groups that lean his direction nationally. Those making $50,000-$99,000 a year favored Trump by seven percent nationally, but in Colorado, they favored Kamala Harris by 10-12 percent. Married voters in the U.S. preferred Trump by 11 percent, but married Coloradans preferred Harris by eight percent.

White voters in Colorado present an even larger disparity. Nationally, white voters comprise 75 percent of the electorate and favored Trump by 22 percent among men and seven percent among women. In Colorado white voters increase to 83 percent, but white men prefer Harris by one percent and white women voted Harris by 19 percent.

Harris won Colorado unaffiliated voters (UAVs) 58 to 38 percent. Ironically, in the statewide race for Colorado University Regent where voters knew little about candidates other than party affiliation, Republicans lost by just 3.9 percent statewide and 3.8 percent among UAVs, demonstrating that some voters who won’t vote for Trump will vote for other Republicans.

By contrast, three of four Coloradoans who voted Republican say they identify more with Trump than with the traditional Republican Party. That’s not surprising after three elections with Trump as the face of the GOP.

The challenge for Colorado Republicans is to stop driving away those deemed insufficiently MAGA and instead to unify center-right voters who can’t stomach the progressive agenda that dominates Democrat politics.

General elections, after all, are contests for popularity – not purity.

Mark Hillman served as Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer. To read more or comment, go to http://www.MarkHillman.com.