Recent Democratic victories in Western state races have party leaders predicting they can win the West and, therefore, the White House.
But there is little correlation between statewide races and presidential elections in the Interior West, a review of 50 years of election results shows. Instead, the region generally seesaws between political parties in state races and is dominated by Republicans in presidential contests.
For a Democrat to overcome the historical voting behavior of a region stretching from Canada to Mexico, the candidate must present a message centered on economic populism, fiscal discipline and a balance between individual rights and governmental protection, say Western Democrats and others who have studied the region’s politics.
And it should be delivered with libertarian rhetoric.
“The Democrats have some grounds for optimism, but it’s still a very Republican region,” said Tom Cronin, a political science professor at Colorado College who is examining the Interior West’s voting behavior over the past 40 years. “Most of the Democrats that win in these states are centrists and moderates, not national liberal candidates.”
Because Democrats have lost most of the Southern states to the GOP, and only a few battleground states remain, targeting the West has increased in importance. The region has few electoral votes, but winning Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico would have given John Kerry the White House in 2004.
“Republicans can no longer take the West for granted, and the Democrats can no longer write it off,” said Dan Kemmis, a senior fellow at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West and author of “This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West.”
Republican strongholds
The Interior West – Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho – isn’t monolithic, and at least three states aren’t considered competitive for Democrats next year.
Utah, where registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats 4-to-1, is known as perhaps the most conservative state in the country. Republican presidential candidates routinely win with more than 60 percent of the vote.
In Wyoming, which has a popular Democratic governor, there are 2.5 registered Republicans to each Democrat. Voters in Idaho don’t register with a party, but the state has a long history as a GOP stronghold.
The remaining five states are arguably competitive, though some more than others. In Colorado, for instance, Republicans edge out Democrats, but elections are usually decided by unaffiliated voters who make up a third of the electorate. In Nevada, registered Democrats hold a slight edge over Republicans and the party is holding its caucus early, between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
But molding a Democratic candidate to appeal to the region is no easy task.
With the exception of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 and re-election four years later, a Democratic candidate has won only one state in the eight-state region since Lyndon B. Johnson nearly swept it in 1964.
Some Democratic strategists point out that the Interior West has made significant inroads in gaining governors, U.S. senators and a handful of progressive ballot measures in the past six years. But Republican dominance in presidential races over the past 50 years has continued regardless of the number of Democrats in statewide offices.
For instance, Democratic governors were a majority in the region from 1972 to 1992 and led all eight states going into the 1984 and 1976 elections. Yet the region still voted for Republican presidents by significant margins.
Part of the explanation for the number of Democratic statewide candidates who have won, said New Mexico state Republican chairman Allen E. Weh, is that they’ve been “independent, self- reliant, conservative Democrats.” In other words: pragmatists who are pro-gun rights, against more taxes and support business but not big business.
“They are the kind of Democrats that I’m not going to lose any sleep over when they win. If you closed your eyes when they talked, you’d think they were Republicans,” he said.
Democrats’ balancing act
Getting a national Democratic candidate who is conservative enough for the West and liberal enough for the coasts, however, is a formidable task, said Jim Farrell, executive director of the Montana state Democratic Party.
“I don’t want to undersell how difficult it is,” Farrell said, noting a candidate has to be authentic and sincere. “But it’s been a failure because of leadership and imagination.”
Taking national issues and reshaping them to fit Western voters is critical if the Democrats are going to have any chance at winning here, said Colorado state Democratic chairwoman Pat Waak.
The federal deficit, the war in Iraq, health care and gas prices affect regions in the country differently. For instance, there’s a heavy military presence in Colorado that candidates should be aware of when talking about the Iraq war, noted former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado. And high petroleum prices translate into harder times for already-struggling farmers and small businesses, Waak said.
“You can’t come out of the East and a protective bubble in Washington, D.C., and make assumptions. You have to listen to the Western rhetoric,” she said.
Getting those messages across, however, may require a translator – especially in a region where the economy is dependent on sectors as varied as farming, drilling and mining, and tourism and high-tech – said Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and author of “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.”
“They need to have local surrogates who know the language and know what’s important,” Schaller said.
Richardson an exception
It’s difficult for anyone to predict which Democratic candidates would do better. Only one, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, is considered a Western candidate. Even Republicans admit that Richardson, who is Hispanic and speaks fluent Spanish, would be a threat.
“If he was the nominee, or even vice presidential candidate, the Democrats might break through,” said Republican Bob Brown, who served as Montana’s secretary of state as well as a state representative and senator.
The three front-runners – U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina – have work to do. Some political analysts say Edwards’ populist message of “Two Americas” might sway some Western voters, while others contend he and Clinton would fit the West’s definition of liberals. Obama remains a question mark, Schaller said.
Regardless of who emerges as the nominee, the Republicans say they must not only defend the territory but aggressively woo it.
“The party is atrophying in the Northeast. Our support in the long term is in peril unless we shore up voters in the West and the Midwest,” said Neil New house, a GOP pollster and co-founder of Public ap Strategies in Virginia.
To do that, Brown advised the GOP nominee to “reawaken” some of the gut-reaction Western issues, such as gun rights and the “heavy hand” of the federal government. And to remember that voters are more attentive to economic concerns than social issues.
Additionally, the GOP plans to stand by the tried and true tactic of defining the opponent as an East or West Coast liberal.
The Democratic National Convention in Denver next year is the perfect opportunity, said Dick Wadhams, head of the Colorado GOP.
“They are going to focus on national Democratic platform, not on the Rocky Mountain West,” Wadhams said. “They will nominate a liberal nominee, and it will show that they are liberals, not moderates.”
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.
