Times change. Ten years ago, I was an alternate delegate at the Colorado Republican State Assembly.
Prepared to vote for delegates pledged to anyone but Donald Trump, I had vowed 鈥淚 will not vote for Donald Trump in the general election should he be the nominee,鈥� in my then-monthly Denver Post column two weeks before the assembly.
Once there, I was not alone in my distaste for the populist candidate. Every Colorado delegate sent on to the national assembly was pledged to Trump鈥檚 primary opponent, Ted Cruz.
Colorado was a purple state then with a Democratic governor and a Republican attorney general, state treasurer, and secretary of state. Republicans held one U.S. Senate seat and four out of seven House of Representatives seats.
Democrats held a slight majority in the Colorado House of Representatives, Republicans a slight majority in the Colorado Senate. There were 961,255 registered Republicans, 1,029,908 unaffiliated voters, and 943,199 Democrats.
Ten years later, Democrats hold all statewide elected offices, four of the state鈥檚 eight congressional House seats, and large majorities in the state House and Senate. While there are 50,000 fewer registered Republicans than there were in 2016, the number of Democrats has significantly increased, and the number of unaffiliated voters has doubled.
Colorado鈥檚 changing political landscape appears to be a consequence of two phenomena — the Big Sort and what I鈥檒l call party insularity syndrome. The Big Sort is a term for the national population shift that has occurred over the past few decades as Americans have moved to states that align with their political and cultural preferences. Because of this trend, blue states have gotten bluer and red states redder.
In 2006, Colorado was a red state with a couple of blue cities. Republicans held five of seven congressional seats, every statewide office, and the state house. Democrats made some very smart, strategic decisions to move the state leftward and within a couple of years gained significant ground as Adam Schrager聽and Rob Witwer鈥檚 2010 book The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado attests. Since then, Colorado has only gotten bluer as more Democrats have moved in and Republicans have moved to other states.
Big Sort population movement doesn鈥檛 completely explain the reduction of Republican voter registrations and the vast increase of unaffiliated voters. Some right-leaning Colorado voters have disaffiliated from the party because they no longer want to be associated with President Trump and his policies, election denialism, Jan. 6 and other embarrassments.
Like a lake cut off from fresh water, the Colorado Republican Party has grown increasingly stagnant. Unlike the robust mix of enthusiastic moderates and conservatives I saw at the 2016 State Assembly, today鈥檚 state party is smaller in number, representation and vision. The party owes money. Election deniers like Tina Peters have a folk hero standing. The state chair was recently pushed out. An antisemitic podcaster who thinks his political opponents should be executed is trying to take her place.
There are still some solid Republicans lawmakers and candidates, but because they fail the MAGA test of purity, they do not receive the support they deserve.
In September, a serious, qualified Republican lawmaker launched her campaign for Colorado governor only to be followed by nearly two dozen also-rans — men with little or no governing experience who think they can win statewide. One also-ran, Victor Marx, has raised $1 million despite having no relevant experience for the governor鈥檚 office.
Other blue states like Maryland, New Hampshire and Massachusetts occasionally elect a Republican governor. There is no reason Colorado, even with a diminished number of Republican voters, can鈥檛 do the same in a good year. To do so, the party will have to find an antidote for party insularity syndrome.
Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.
