June 23, 2013 10:08 AM UTC

Colorado: Less Purple, More Blue, And No Stopping It

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Fort Collins Coloradoan's Patrick Malone put out an excellent, in-depth look at the state of Colorado politics looking ahead to 2014 this weekend, as well as a summary of Democratic gains made in this state since 2004–and prospects for continued success in a state whose demographics have permanently changed in the last two decades. A few excerpts, but make sure you click through and read this whole story:

Voter behavior provides the most obvious evidence. Electors in 2006 banned gay marriage, rejected civil unions by another name and turned down a measure to legalize marijuana.

Fast forward to 2012, when polls showed 65 percent of Coloradans favored allowing civil unions for gay couples, and 55 percent of voters approved an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.

Add Democrats’ most prosperous decade of election performances in a half-century, and it is undeniable that the longtime swing state has become a bluer shade of purple, longtime observers of Colorado politics agree…

“People are fleeing states like California, big cities like Detroit and Chicago, and coming to Colorado, for the promise of opportunity and outdoor recreation, and importing their politics,” said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

He doubts the demographic advantage that the liberal ideology enjoys today is sustainable. Call predicts newcomers to the state will eventually grow disenchanted with the policies of the Democrats they elect.

Another Republican, retired professor Bob Loevy who served on the reapportionment commission in 2011, doesn't agree with Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call.

“Fifty years ago, the backbone of the Republican Party was upper-class people with good educations that mostly lived in the suburbs — old-timers called them ‘Eisenhower Republicans,’ ” Loevy said. “They sustained the party for years. Under the (President George W.) Bush administration, emphasis on those key social issues began driving upscale and well-educated people out of the Republican Party. This was particularly true of their children. That’s the main reason, in my view, for the decline of the Republican Party in Colorado.”

There's plenty here for our readers to discuss. Let us say again that the emphasis on social wedge issues Loevy talks about above continues apace in today's Republican Party, where despite warnings of long-term peril, politically suicidal abortion bans and killing overwhelmingly popular immigration reform measures dominate the agenda. The battle over gun safety bills this year, and the fallout as Republicans dump money and emotion into "making an example" of circumstantially vulnerable Democrats, won't be enough to reverse this larger and more fundamental problem the Colorado GOP has created for itself. As with these other issues where Republicans planted their flag, there is simply not enough of a base to overcome the demographic sea changes occurring all around them. In fact, as the face of Colorado's electorate changes, these "strengths" become liabilities.

As we've said, we don't know what the road back to a majority for the GOP here is. There may not be one.