Political Geography: Colorado (Micah Cohen, FiveThirtyEight)

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Political Geography: Colorado
By Micah Cohen

Characterizing an electorate for a caucus is much trickier than doing so for a primary. That’s a reason there have been very few polls previewing Tuesday’s contests — it’s difficult for pollsters to model the likely turnout. Only about 70,000 Colorado Republicans participated in the state’s 2008 presidential caucus, so the peculiarities of any election can markedly change the profile of those who show up.

There are, however, some notable constituencies that make up the Colorado Republican electorate. To get a sense of who they are and where they live, FiveThirtyEight looked to Seth Masket, an associate professor of political science at the University of Denver, and Kyle Saunders, an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University.

The Republican Party’s base of support in Colorado is to the south and east of Denver. First, there are the Denver suburbs, where almost 40 percent of the state’s Republicans live, according to voter registration statistics compiled by Colorado’s Secretary of State’s office. In many ways, they are typical suburban Republicans: establishment friendly, fiscally focused and perhaps a little more moderate on social issues than Colorado Republicans farther to the south.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/