The making of a blue state

Brad Jones

Brad Jones

— 4 min read
A choropleth map showing the results of the 2024 election in Colorado by county.
2024 presidential election results in Colorado by county. Image credit, ZackCarns, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado#/media/File:Colorado_Presidential_Election_Results_2024.svg

Colorado is one of the only states in the country that has moved in a steadily Democratic direction over the past 25 years.

The graphic below shows how the two-party vote (that is excluding minor party candidates) in Colorado compares with the national two-party vote. Since the 2008 election, Colorado has been more Democratic than the national average in every presidential election. In the previous 80 years (1924-2004), every other presidential election with the exception of 1948 and 1964, Colorado was more Republican than the national average.

The focus on the difference from the national average controls in some measure for national swings. Presidential elections have generally been characterized by uniform swings across all states. We saw this once again in Trump's victory in 2024. (Nearly) every state swung toward the Republican Party in 2024 compared to their support for Trump in the 2020 election. For more, see this old post of mine on (the now defunct) CivilPolitics.

Difference between Colorado’s Democratic vote share in each presidential election since 1924 and the national average

Note: Each point on the plot shows the difference between the two-party Democratic vote in Colorado and the two-party Democratic national vote share. Values above the red line indicate years where Colorado voted more Democratic than the national average and values below the red line show years where Colorado was more Republican than the national average. In 2024, Colorado was 6 percentage points more Democratic than the national average. In 1980, Colorado was 9 percentage points more Republican than the national average. Source: Public records of presidential election returns (1924-2024).

One of the remarkable things about Colorado's shift is that during the past 20 years, only three other states have made similarly large moves toward the Democratic Party: Alaska, Utah and Vermont.

State-level partisan shifts, 2004-2024

Note: Each arrow on the plot originates at the difference between the two-party Democratic vote in each state and the two-party Democratic national vote share in 2004. Values to the left of the red line indicate years each state voted more Democratic than the national average and values to the right of the red line show years where each state was more Republican than the national average. Bolded arrows indicate a shift of more than 10 points between 2004 and 2024. Source: Public records of presidential election returns (2004-2024).

I don't know much about Alaska politics apart from their moderate-ish senior senator. The Utah shift seems to be more driven more by an anti-Trump sentiment. Both states remain very Republican leaning. Vermont started blue and has just become bluer, while Colorado has shifted from a reliably Republican state to a reliably Democratic one.

What accounts for this leftward shift in Colorado?

That is a lot of what I hope to unpack with this website in the coming weeks and months.

Next time: Demographic trends. I'll look into 50 years of data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to track how the demographics of Colorado have changed and how it compares to the rest of the country.

Read more