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Several counties with heavy oil and gas development helped deliver the death-blow Tuesday to Proposition 112, the voter initiative that would have drastically increased drilling setbacks from homes, businesses and waterways to 2,500 feet.
The industry spent more than $30 million to defeat Prop 112 in the election. The measure was losing 56 percent to 44 percent .
Hover over each county to see how Prop 112 did ():
Those county-by-county election results show how the measure faltered, as environmentalists and local-control activists were out-messaged by an industry with a large worker base:
- Not surprisingly, the measure did best in Democratic strongholds, exceeding 70 percent support in San Miguel, Pitkin and Boulder counties while garnering smaller — but still double-digit — margins in Denver and several resort-heavy counties in the central mountains.
- That wasn’t enough, especially as most counties with heavy energy development voted no decisively. In the epicenter of drilling, nearly 75 percent of Weld County voters gave a thumbs-down. Counties with sizable drilling activity that did support Prop 112 included Boulder, Broomfield — where the measure was a hot political issue — and southwest Colorado’s La Plata, home of Durango.
- Prop 112 met its match in key suburban counties that went big for Democratic Gov.-elect Jared Polis. The measure lost by more than 10 percentage points in Adams, which has drilling activity, as well as Jefferson and Arapahoe, which have little or none.
