Don't Look Now, but the Mountain West Is Turning Blue

[DonViejo]

From the 1980s until recently, Republicans were as ubiquitous in the Rockies as Coors. But Tuesday, the Democrats made serious inroads in nearly every state. What’s happened?

Liz Mair
11.09.18 5:21 AM ET

Republicans have a problem.

While they’re continuing to perform OK-ish in the Midwest and the South in the era of Donald Trump, on Tuesday they got hammered in the Mountain West—a region loosely defined as “cowboy country,” i.e., Texas plus everything from Colorado and New Mexico to the borders of the Pacific coast states. It’s the continuation of a trend that’s been going on for more than a decade, but it’s particularly worrisome now. Republicans should be able to win in states largely populated by fiscally conservative, pro-gun rights individuals. But the results Tuesday were no bueno.

Nevada and Colorado are starting to look more blue than purple. Arizona, which has more Electoral College votes than either, has been Republican since forever but now appears to be an honest-to-God swing state. New Mexico, which used to be a swing state, is now completely out of reach for the GOP except under the most unusual circumstances.

Montana has been showing for some time that if you run the right Democrat, it can go blue. Even Utah and Texas appear to be changing, politically. It’s all very bad news for the GOP, but it’s unclear whether national figures sitting in offices in Washington, D.C., have noticed or care about it.

Democrats asserting political prowess in the Mountain West really started in the 2000s, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, chair of the Democratic Governors Association and perhaps the quintessential Western Democrat, began a major push to get more Democrats elected in the region. (Back in my grandparents’ heyday, you could find plenty of them, but by the time I came of age, they were a scarcer breed).

Richardson created a fiscally conservative (or passable version thereof), socially liberal, and pro-gun blueprint for use by Democrats running in the area (fun fact: Until former Sen. Fred Thompson entered the 2008 presidential race, Richardson had the best NRA rating of any candidate in either party). It got results: In the 2000s, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and even Wyoming had Democratic governors.

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