NPR.org, October 26, 2004
DENVER -- Something weird is happening in Colorado: Democrats are sounding optimistic about the presidential race here. And Democrats are not used to winning in Colorado.
In the past 50 years, the state has given a majority of its presidential vote to a Democrat just once. That was in 1964, when the state voted for Lyndon Johnson during his historic landslide over Barry Goldwater. The only other time the state's electoral votes went to a Democrat was in 1992, when Bill Clinton carried Colorado with just 40 percent of the vote because Ross Perot was in the race. Perot, running as an independent that year, got nearly a fourth of the vote in Colorado, and then-President George H.W. Bush fell below 36 percent.
Colorado does elect a few Democrats to statewide offices. But they have to be independent and a little bit ornery: former Govs. Dick Lamm and Roy Romer come to mind. But it's been a decade since a Democrat won a marquee race here. And for president, Colorado is solidly Republican. Colorado College political science professor Bob Loevy is a numbers man and he's examined voting statistics going back decades. He says that when it comes to White House races, Colorado has consistently voted Republican by four percentage points more than the country as a whole.
Even Sen. John Kerry's campaign manager in Colorado, Sue Casey, says she originally thought the state would go to President Bush. When Casey took the job, she imagined there being little chance for a nail-biter. After all, Mr. Bush beat Al Gore here by nine percentage points four years ago, and Colorado has been red on all the prognosticators' maps since the 2004 election cycle began.
But now Casey says Kerry has a good chance of winning here, and the polls back her up. The Kerry campaign recently cut back on the number of TV ads it's airing locally, but the Democratic nominee visited the state just last weekend and his people insist Colorado is still in play. Probably the best evidence that they are right is the frequent appearance of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Over the last few weeks it seems one or the other has either been present in Colorado or planning a visit soon.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4127051
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