Economics takes on demography in the mountain West.
COLORADO is still getting used to being a swing state. On the receiving end of the entreaties of a canvasser for Mitt Romney, the good people of Jefferson County, a sleepy suburb of Denver, express little interest in a campaign that is very interested in them. Few answer their doors. One woman, buttonholed as she enjoys a cigarette on her doorstep, is more concerned to ensure her children look before they cross the deserted road. A man recently roused from slumber doesn’t know much about Mr Romney but has some questions about Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
In presidential elections Colorado used to fall reliably into the Republican column. Until 2008 no Democrat had carried the state since 1964, except Bill Clinton in 1992. But four years ago Barack Obama won Colorado by nine percentage points; a wider margin than he achieved nationally.
Demography helps explain why. Over the past few decades Latinos and college-educated whites have flocked to Colorado. Most moved to or near Denver, attracted by a booming economy and an attractive quality of life. Today both groups lean Democratic. In contrast, the non-college-educated whites who provide a foundation of Republican support are in relative decline (although Colorado Springs, the state’s second city and an evangelical stronghold, is growing). The campaigns agree that the crucial swing votes are in the inner suburbs of Denver, such as Jefferson and Arapahoe Counties.
Similar patterns are found in nearby states, which is why Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist, thinks the “mountain West” is becoming one of America’s electoral battlegrounds. Moreover, this fast-growing region now carries greater electoral heft. Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico account for 20 electoral-college votes, compared with 18 for perennial swinger Ohio.
This year, Mr Obama is only just ahead in Colorado polls, thanks to the slow recovery. At 8.3%, unemployment is a bit higher than the national figure. A pet theme for the Republicans is the Obama administration’s alleged job-killing hostility to the extractive industries—a hot topic in this resource-rich state. Mr Romney’s first campaign stop in Colorado was in Craig, an obscure coal-mining town in the north-west.
This year registered Republicans outnumber Democrats, though there are even more unaffiliated voters. Come November 6th the Republican base in Colorado, a fractious coalition of small-government insurgents, social conservatives and the party’s buttoned-up establishment, is likely to set aside its differences to smite Mr Obama. The Democrats, in contrast, must reinvigorate two of their key constituencies, Latinos and the young.
That is why the Obama team is working hard on its ground game. It has opened almost 60 offices across Colorado, next to the Republicans’ 14. Volunteers are installed on college campuses, at chilli cook-offs and anywhere else they might encounter large numbers of potential supporters. Two of Mr Obama’s eight campaign stops this year have been at universities. “The biggest challenge for the president is apathy,” says Alan Salazar, a veteran Democratic operative.
presidential election
Happily for the Democrats, they are not starting from scratch. In 2004 the party captured both houses of the General Assembly with support from a group of wealthy liberals known as the “gang of four”. Funds poured into leftist think-tanks, Democrat-friendly “527s” (the precursors to today’s super PACs) and campaign infrastructure. In 2010, a year of big gains for Republicans around the country, such organisation helped the Democrats retain a Colorado Senate seat against expectations and win the governor’s race. The model “has been tuned up for this election”, says Floyd Ciruli, a pollster.
That Senate election was won by Michael Bennet, who racked up huge margins among Latino and women voters. Mr Obama’s campaign shows signs of wanting to emulate that race. Democratic ads portray Mr Romney and his running-mate, Paul Ryan, as pro-life extremists. “There was an iteration of Romney several years ago that could have done well in Colorado,” says a Democratic strategist. “It’s not the one running for president.”
Yet Mr Bennet’s job was made easier by the clunking missteps of his opponent, Ken Buck, a tea-party favourite who had urged voters to back him over his female primary rival because he didn’t wear high heels. Whatever else he is, Mr Romney is not that sort of politician. “The Democrats are overplaying their hand on social issues,” says Dick Wadhams, chair of the state Republican Party until last year.
The trends that have turned Colorado purple are amplified in Nevada, a few hundred miles west. The state has laboured for much of the year under America’s highest unemployment and foreclosure rates. But thanks to booming Las Vegas its population was America’s fastest-growing between 2000 and 2010, and since Mr Obama carried the state by 12.5 points in 2008 minorities have continued to grow in number. For now, demography appears to be trumping economics: Mr Obama has been ahead in every state poll this year.
Both states remain in play this year, as anyone who switches on the television will discover. But in the long term, unless the Republicans can find a way to expand their message beyond a dwindling constituency of white men, they may find themselves with mountains to climb in this part of America’s West.
(The Economist)
