Colorado PPP: Obama 49 Romney 43

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We can all agree that this state will be close, along with Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

No we can't. The margin here will be larger than in any of the above states.

We can all agree that this state will be close, along with Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

No we can't. The margin here will be larger than in any of the above states.

The margin will be higher than in those states--for Romney.

Why are Democrats so obsessed with the liberalization of Colorado?  It's entirely possible that, just as Ohio didn't bounce to the right nearly as quickly as the 2010 elections indicated, that Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008 were not so much a realignment in Colorado politics than a protest vote of sorts.  Republicans actually did quite well in Colorado in 2010, except for a mangled gubernatorial race that the GOP was leading for over a year, and a poor Senate run by a relative novice.

If the GOP was in such bad shape in Colorado, thus meriting the sort of "Colorado is blue through and through" silliness I hear from a lot of Democrats, then the GOP wouldn't have the expansive active voter registration lead that it does.  And the president's new gallup number in Colorado?  A whopping 43%.  That's lower than Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia.

So what's going on here?  Most likely, Colorado has moved quite a bit to the right, along with most of the rest of the country.  The Democratic performance in high profile races in 2010 only masked that, much like President Bush's win here in '04 masked major Democratic gains in other races.  It's a state that Republicans, with a good candidate, should definitely win, and likely will this year. 

And, as it happens, I do think that the president has a great shot to win Ohio and Virginia, which will all but make up for a tough loss in Colorado.

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We can all agree that this state will be close, along with Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

No we can't. The margin here will be larger than in any of the above states.

We can all agree that this state will be close, along with Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

No we can't. The margin here will be larger than in any of the above states.

The margin will be higher than in those states--for Romney.

Why are Democrats so obsessed with the liberalization of Colorado?  It's entirely possible that, just as Ohio didn't bounce to the right nearly as quickly as the 2010 elections indicated, that Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008 were not so much a realignment in Colorado politics than a protest vote of sorts.  Republicans actually did quite well in Colorado in 2010, except for a mangled gubernatorial race that the GOP was leading for over a year, and a poor Senate run by a relative novice.

If the GOP was in such bad shape in Colorado, thus meriting the sort of "Colorado is blue through and through" silliness I hear from a lot of Democrats, then the GOP wouldn't have the expansive active voter registration lead that it does.  And the president's new gallup number in Colorado?  A whopping 43%.  That's lower than Mississippi, North Carolina, and Georgia.

So what's going on here?  Most likely, Colorado has moved quite a bit to the right, along with most of the rest of the country.  The Democratic performance in high profile races in 2010 only masked that, much like President Bush's win here in '04 masked major Democratic gains in other races.  It's a state that Republicans, with a good candidate, should definitely win, and likely will this year.  

And, as it happens, I do think that the president has a great shot to win Ohio and Virginia, which will all but make up for a tough loss in Colorado.

I happen to agree with that, but debating with the majority of democrats on the forums makes me grow tired and unenthusiastic.

Colorado is perhaps the standard-bearer of the Democratic narrative that demography dooms the GOP and the future is bluer than a Pepsi can.  If young people and Hispanics will inevitably carry the Democratic Party to permanent majority status, then a GOP bump in Colorado would be a logical or political impossibility.  Thus the obsession with winning the state.  The problem is that the Colorado that the left has envisioned is largely a fantasy.  Hispanics have been trending to the right in Colorado, and counting on young voters to get you to the state's nine votes is like counting on snow in August.  It's happened before, but it won't happen often.  The reality is that the state is only marginally different politically than it was in, say, 2000 or 1992 (when Mr. Clinton beat Mr. Bush and the state also passed Amendment 2).  The state's political history is much more independent and mixed than "the narrative"--that Mr. Obama made a super-red state unalterably blue--would have you believe.

The only thing that will shake that narrative's viability, however, is November itself.

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The real question is whether you guys think Colorado has become more Republican than the nation. I think Colorado is very close to the national average, meaning that a current lead of 2-3 nationally means Obama is up about the same in Colorado. Incidentally, that is the average of the Rasmussen and this poll.

I'd put Colorado's PVI at either EVEN or R +1, so I think you're probably right.  If the president does manage to pull off a 3-point win nationally, he'll probably pick up Colorado by a narrow margin.  On the other hand, I think that the president's PVI is more D-leaning in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and probably similar to Colorado in Virginia.  So if he really does get a 3-point win nationally, then it'll be an 300 EV night for the president. 

My gut says that it'll be tighter than that, though, so I still think that Romney will pick up Colorado but drop several other swing states, including Ohio.  I hope I'm wrong.