by Joan Harvey
Colorado has been a purple state so long that the last time the Democrats had all down ballot State offices, the State House, and State Senate was in 1936. We’re a cowboy state. On the map we’re a sea of red with a tiny blue area to the east of the Continental Divide, plus the tiny population of Aspen. But those small urban and suburban areas have more and more people, and increasingly those people have a voice. And this time that voice has brought us a gay Jewish Democrat as governor, as well as a Democratic attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer. Democrats will control the State House and State Senate. We’re so damn Blue we’re almost cobalt.
How did we do it? Can it be duplicated on a national level? It’s national news that we elected the nation’s first openly gay governor. But we also elected Colorado’s first African American congressman and he’s only 34. We elected the first transgender state rep. We elected more Latinxs to the state legislature. We elected the first Democratic woman to the position of secretary of state and she beat the incumbent in a seat that hasn’t been held by a Democrat since the Eisenhower years. All five of the female candidates in competitive districts for State Senate won handily. And for Congress, Democrat Jason Crow aced the previously unbeatable Republican incumbent Mike Coffman, who had won the previous five terms. Trump blamed Coffman for not embracing him, but in actuality it was Crow’s ability to tie Coffman to Trump that helped Crow win.
Maybe it’s marijuana. Coloradans are so relaxed they just couldn’t work up a rage against a small raggedy caravan of women and children hundreds of miles away. But clearly, the real reason for the great Blue success is Trump. Read more »
