Colorado surprised no one when it favored Vice President Kamala Harris over then-candidate Donald Trump by 11 points. This deep-blue state years ago put liberal Democrats in charge of all state offices, both Senate seats, five of eight congressional districts, both chambers of the state legislature, the Colorado Board of Regents, and the state board of education.
Since 2018, Colorado has gone from purple to bluer than blue. Yet despite strong support for Harris, Centennial State voters this year gave moderates and conservatives enough to celebrate.
Consider Pueblo — Colorado’s 10th largest city with a metro population of 170,000. Pueblo has historically been a Democratic stronghold, a blue-collar Boulder, as a working-class steel town that is 50% Hispanic and heavily unionized.
“An analysis of what is clearly a realignment of party coalitions shows a massive opportunity for growth for Republicans — if they immediately get to work to seize it. Where to start? Pueblo,” Colorado political strategist Sean Duffy wrote.
Republicans or Republican-aligned candidates took control of the Pueblo County Commission, the Pueblo City Council, and the community’s school boards. Pueblo County voters chose Trump after favoring President Joe Biden in 2020. A Nov. 6 Pueblo Chieftain headline said, “Republicans triumph, incumbents falter.”
Pueblo politicos on the Left and Right say conservatives have never seen so much success in the city’s history.
Pueblo’s drift to the right tracks with other largely Hispanic regions of the country that voted Republican in record-breaking numbers. It also attests to concerns among leading Democrats that their party is hemorrhaging minorities and the working class.
Consider that Boulder, Colorado’s other long-term Democratic stronghold, is mostly non-Hispanic white, wealthy, and professional. While the average home listing in Pueblo is $305,900, Boulder’s average listings exceed $1 million. Boulder County went for Harris by 77% and strongly favored every center-left issue and candidate.
Research by the American Enterprise Institute finds that only 14% of Pueblo’s union households voted Republican in 1960. This year, they went 46% for Harris and 46% for Trump.
Statewide, the election indicates that Coloradans have lost patience with the Democratic establishment’s decadelong crusade for soft-on-crime “criminal justice reform,” which correlates with a 61% increase in violent crime, a 94% increase in homicides, a 13% increase in rape, a 22% increase in robbery, an 88% increase in aggravated assault, and a 231% increase in auto theft.
Just this year, U.S. News & World Report ranked Colorado as the third-most dangerous state. Voters rejected the light sentences advocated by Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) and the legislature by enacting Proposition 128 with 62% of the vote. The new law increases the time convicts must serve for violent crimes before eligibility for parole.
Voters also addressed Colorado’s runaway crime by passing Proposition 130, which creates a fund for law enforcement training and a $1 million death benefit for families of first responders killed on duty.
Another ballot measure promoted by conservatives, Amendment 80, would have enshrined school choice in the Colorado Constitution. Opponents, who organized a well-funded opposition campaign, included the National Education Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Colorado PTA, the Colorado Association of School Executives, Denver Public Schools, and a who’s who list of other left-leaning organizations.
Despite millions spent to defeat the measure, it received support from 48.1% of the electorate. Encouraged by that, supporters plan to try again in two years with a stronger campaign that might garner the 55% support needed to amend the constitution.
Colorado conservatives also claim success for two measures that did not make the ballot. Center-right organizations gathered enough signatures to place initiatives written to rein in soaring property taxes resulting from rising property values. Polis was so concerned the initiatives would pass that he convened a special legislative session last summer. The session delivered tax cuts substantial enough that sponsors of the initiatives agreed to keep them off the ballot.
Trump’s statewide drubbing came mostly from Denver, Boulder, and a few other densely populated cities, suburbs, and mountain resorts. Geographically, Trump won most Colorado counties and precincts. The Right’s geographic advantage helped Republicans gain enough seats in the state House to overcome years of the Democratic Party’s veto-proof supermajority.
In another geographic win for the Right, voters flipped Colorado’s new 8th Congressional District, which includes part of deep-blue Denver, by electing Republican Gabe Evans to replace Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D-CO). The flip gives Colorado a fourth Republican in Congress.
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Other electoral displeasure with Colorado’s left-wing establishment showed up with voters defeating animal rights measures, including a proposed ban on hunting lions and other wild cats. Denver rejected a measure to outlaw meatpacking plants, which would have killed hundreds of minority jobs.
Though Colorado remains solidly blue, November’s election shows cracks and faults in the Left’s foundation. It gives Republicans hope in their fight to make Colorado purple again.
Wayne Laugesen is editor of the editorial pages for the Gazette in Colorado.