When Barack Obama accepted his party’s presidential nomination 18 months ago in a floodlighted football stadium in Denver, he pinned the hopes of a new Democratic ascendancy on the Intermountain West. But what about the south? Quick growth in the west have opened opportunities to hold those states long term, party strategists believe, creating a potential counterweight to two decades of losses in the South. “If you look at the . . . states that Obama won where Kerry didn’t, the Nevada-Colorado- New Mexico axis is his most comfortable subset,” said Tom Schaller, associate professor of political science.
The article, “Intermountain West loosens its embrace of Democrats,” ran February 18 in the Denver Post.
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