Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida Beware: The Tragic Political Decline of Colorado

Colorado may be able to get away with its crazy politics because it has the majestic mountains. Most states won’t be so lucky.

On March 1, 2004, I moved from Colorado where I was the Deputy Director for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies during the second term of Republican Governor Bill Owens to Washington, D.C., to serve in the George W. Bush Administration. Two years earlier, Owens had easily won reelection and, with my help, Republican U.S. Senator Wayne Allard secured his reelection in the top U.S. Senate race in America that year. When I boarded the airplane for Washington, D.C., I would never have thought that Owens would be the last Republican governor of Colorado; other than one fluke win by Cory Gardner in 2014 largely due to a terribly run campaign by incumbent Democrat Mark Udall (48% to 46%), Allard would be the last multi-term Republican U.S. Senator from Colorado; and Bush’s 2004 win in Colorado would be the last time a Republican would win the state. When I left Colorado in 2004, it had a Republican governor, two Republican U.S. Senators, a 4-2 Republican delegation for the U.S. House, and Republican control of both the Colorado House and Colorado Senate.

Twenty-two years later, Colorado’s governors have all been Democrats (Bill Ritter, John Hickenlooper, and Jared Polis); other than Gardner’s sole term, Colorado’s U.S. Senators have all been Democrats (Ken Salazar, Udall, Michael Bennet, and Hickenlooper); and presidential winners have all been Democrats (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris). The U.S. House delegation is tied at 4-4 (average Democrat margin of victory in 2024 was 32.25% versus average Republican margin of victory was 8.0%) and the Colorado General Assembly is controlled by Democrats. Colorado is now so Blue that Harris beat Donald Trump by 11 percent, which was the same margin as in progressive Left Illinois and only slightly less than what Harris did in New York. By my math, that means Democrats have gone 15-2 in those three top offices since the day I left Colorado. So, what happened to Colorado to turn it from a Purple state to a hardcore Blue state?

Now, I’m not suggesting that MY absence from Colorado politics in 2004 resulted in the flip, but politicos, the Rocky Mountain News, and The Colorado Statesman thought I was a key part of the Republican political future of Colorado—the “next Dick Wadhams” (i.e., the Karl Rove of Colorado). Plus, back in 2000, the Denver Business Journal named me as one of its “Forty Under 40” winners in which two of the three winners still in our twenties were current Governor Polis and yours truly:-) That success followed by an even more successful two-and-a-half years in Washington, D.C., made it all the more head-scratching that upon landing in Ohio in January 2007, I couldn’t get anyone to throw me so much as a bone. I met with Franklin County Republican Chairman Doug Preisse, Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine, former Speaker of the Ohio House Jo Ann Davidson, then Ohio Speaker of the House-now U.S. Senator Jon Husted, State Senator-congressional candidate Steve Stivers, and even John Kasich’s policy guys. All of them blew me off. I finally just gave up and took over the then-failing Buckeye Institute with the hope to advance change through my think tank work. Nineteen years later, Ohio under their leadership and without my direct help and after ignoring most of our policy ideas has only gotten worse. Just sayin’...

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