LOVELAND — The Larimer County Fair parade rumbles to a start aboard a vintage military truck carrying old-timer Marines.
Then comes a high school marching band. Then the sheriff’s posse on horseback. Then the Larimer County Fair queen, with a wave that’s all in the wrist.
And by the time the first political candidate comes marching down Railroad Avenue — this is an election year, after all — Jeff Andreski has already issued something of a warning.
“I’d be shocked if you saw Udall out here,” he says, referring to U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, a Democrat from Boulder County. “You never know. But he’ll know it if he is. I’ll be booing him. We’re kind of the anti-Boulder here in Loveland.”
But while Andreski — a General Electric technician and father of eight home-schooled children — has company in his politics among the thousands who have set up lawn chairs to watch the parade, he is also not exactly representative.
Larimer County has long been a conservative bastion in northern Colorado. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore received less than 40 percent of the vote here in his run for president, and Republican Bob Schaffer — Udall’s opponent in this year’s Senate race — was re-elected to Congress with a staggering 74 percent.
But a population boom, the emergence of a high-tech and renewable-energy economy and the influence of Colorado State University have changed the overall color of the county.
“My general sense of it is that as it grows, it’s becoming increasingly moderate,” said CSU political-science professor John Straayer. “It’s not becoming a Democratic stronghold at all. But it’s not a Republican stronghold either.”
Since 2004, the county has gone for Democrat Ken Salazar in a Senate race and Democrat Bill Ritter in the governor’s race, voted twice against Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in her congressional races and approved Referendum C — the state revenue measure reviled by hard- right Republicans — with nearly 57 percent.
The county’s state legislative delegation is now split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. And since 2000, the number of registered Republicans in the county has fallen, while the number of Democrats has grown by about 6,500. (Republicans still make up the largest voting bloc in the county, followed by unaffiliateds and then Democrats.)
True to form, when the county Democrats’ float hits the parade route, it receives scattered applause and cheers, not boos.
“I’d like to think we are more moderate,” said Teresa Boynton, a lifelong county resident and a registered Democrat who admits there have been only a few times over the years that she has voted for the winning candidate. “That we aren’t as conservative as we have been in the past.”
This is where things get tricky, though, because some argue that the county’s current color of purple is real ly just distinct chunks of red and blue viewed from afar.
The three Democrats in Larimer’s state legislative delegation all come from Fort Collins. The three Republicans are from the surrounding areas of the county — which, with the exception of Loveland, tend to be more rural.
The fair parade provides a good example of this dynamic. Much of the procession features horses, muscular pickups and clattering antique tractors. The city of Fort Collins has two vehicles in the parade, too — one a diminutive Smart car and the other a hybrid Ford Escape.
“It’s the influence from CSU that real ly skews it in my view from what Larimer County has been,” said state Rep. Kevin Lundberg, a Republican who lives just outside of Berthoud. “… It’s still an exception when a Democrat wins a countywide race.”
In Fort Collins, the eclectic mixes with the elegant in the spirited downtown.
New Belgium Brewing, perhaps the city’s most recognizable institution, touts both its enviro-friendly beers and its commitment to preserving the Poudre River.
The city is home to advanced engineering centers for Intel and AMD, which have brought in highly paid, highly educated workers, said Mayor Doug Hutchinson. And Fort Collins also was the leader in developing the Northern Colorado Clean Energy Cluster, a group of firms working collectively on renewable-energy development.
Democrats have benefited from those changes, but they say they have also begun talking more to voters about quality-of-life issues such as health care and transportation.
“I think that the Democratic Party really represents the vision that this county has for its future,” said Lisa Poppaw, a Fort Collins City Council member whom Barack Obama’s presidential campaign tapped to lead a voter-registration effort in the county.
One-time county Republican Party head Bill Kaufman, though, says Democrats were able to seize that vision only after Republicans abdicated it. He says his party in the county swung to the far right in the last decade, embracing social conservatism to the alienation of more middle-of-the- road Republicans.
“I know Republican after Republican who is still registered Republican, but they’re not voting that way anymore,” Kaufman said.
How accurate Poppaw’s and Kaufman’s assessments are will be put to the test this November when Democrat James Ross faces Lundberg, considered one of the most conservative lawmakers at the Capitol, in the House District 49 race. The district covers almost the entirety of Larimer County, save for Fort Collins and Loveland, and registered Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two to one.
Ross has been out knocking on doors and holding community forums, hitting reliably moderate themes: fixing roads, expanding the economy and improving health care.
“I think there are enough people who are tired of the way things are going,” Ross said. “… They’re looking for a change.”
Don’t expect Andreski, the General Electric technician who lives in the district, to agree. Or Lundberg, for that matter.
“I know the people in their core are still common-sense conservative people here in Larimer County,” Lundberg said.
But at a rally for Ross in the corner of the Rock Bottom Brewery in Loveland, Eric Weedin says things in Larimer County aren’t the way they used to be.
“My dad used to say Jeffrey Dahmer could probably get elected in Larimer County if he had an ‘R’ after his name,” Weedin said. “… That’s changed.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
