DEMOCRATS ONLY: which state do you think is safer in D column going forward

[Non Swing Voter]

Virginia or Colorado?

Virginia - 20% black, stable voting patterns.  NOVA is increasing as a percentage of the population.  Rural areas are decreasing in population.  Fairfax is getting more urban and voting more like DC.

Colorado - Denver and Boulder offer huge vote margins.  Hispanic vote share is increasing.  Lots of liberal whites from the west coast.

[Orser67]

http://cookpolitical.com/file/filename.pdf

Virginia seems to have the clearer trend towards Democrats

[illegaloperation]

Virginia because it is inelastic.

[Ebowed]

Colorado is beginning to adopt some West Coast traits, staying strong for the Democrats in 2010 by having a higher floor than a rapidly radicalising state GOP.  Along with some of its social attitudes, it seems to be adopting a type of culture that is similar to the strong polarisation in Washington and Oregon.  Not that I am really worried about Virginia in future elections, either.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We can win without Va. But combo of NV, CO and NH is equivillent to OH 18 ev and certainly is the new bellweather on the prez race.

[Non Swing Voter]

I tend to agree with the responses here.

Virginia seems like a stable bet because it's inelastic but slightly favors Democrats.

I could see the GOP winning Colorado every now and then, but I could also see Democrats winning Colorado by double digits.  I don't think we can win Virginia by double digits anytime soon though.

[DS0816]

This is about margins. Virginia has more red to it than Colorado as the inverse is true that Colorado has more blue to it than Virginia. For this being a Democratic presidential realignment period, and these two states being Top 3 in reflecting statewide margins, from Elections 2008 and 2012, most closely connected to national margins...they're likely on pace to continue being presidential bellwether states. And I suppose Colorado will continue to have a little more blue to it than Virginia while the inverse may manifest as Virginia will have more red to it than Colorado.

A thing about Colorado: Compare it to Iowa over the last 80 years (1932 to 2012): They're two states that carried for Franklin Roosevelt in his first two, but not his last two, elections. They flipped from 1944 Republican to 1948 Democratic for Harry Truman. They carried the same in all election cycles from 1920 to 1984. And since 2004, the have been no more than 4.00 percentage points from each other in spread. Iowa essentially has replaced neighboring Missouri is an important presidential bellwether state (even in 2000, when popular-vote winner Al Gore held it close to his national margin, Iowa and New Mexico are the only two states which carried for all the popular-vote winners since after the 1980s). Given the last two presidential election cycles, Colorado has closely connected with Iowa with no more than a 0.59 percent spread (from 2008). I mention this because of some nuances shared by some states for a considerable stretch of years' worth of presidential election cycles.