Politico Magazine’s deep dive examines how Colorado flipped from red to blue, laying out the Democrats’ playbook—from grassroots organizing to high-minded populism under Governor Jared Polis. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and company map the “Colorado Way” that’s become a national blueprint.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Blueprint for takeover: Democrats invested in local school-board races, ballot initiatives (like paid family leave), and a data-driven ground game to steadily erode GOP turf.
- Money meets message: The “Gang of Four” billionaires poured cash into digital ads and candidate recruitment, while Republicans squabbled over purity tests and RINO call-outs.
- Polis’s populism: Universal Pre-K, behavioral-health overhauls, and transit pledges burnished the governor’s brand—even as programs underdeliver and state government ballooned.
- Cost-of-living crisis: Despite blue-ribbon panels and big spending, Colorado ranks among the nation’s least affordable states—yet voters keep rewarding the party in charge.
- GOP self-inflicted wounds: In-fighting, absentee leadership, and a failure to articulate a coherent conservative vision left the field wide open for Dems to charge through.
My Bottom Line
If you’re a conservative who remembers when Colorado was your playground—guns on hip, small-town values, and tax bills you could stomach—you’re living in a nostalgic mirage. The “Colorado Way” succeeded because Republicans spent their energy calling each other RINOs instead of recruiting candidates, building coalitions, or crafting policies that resonate beyond Twitter outrage. Meanwhile, Democrats quietly stacked school boards, staffed up county seats, and made incremental gains until the state capitol flipped blue in full.
Governor Polis may tout Universal Pre-K and behavioral health as triumphs, but the reality is a tattered BHA, clogged highways, and families priced out of Denver. Yet voters reward the party of “solutions” because the GOP never offers any—just hollow rants and internecine warfare. If Colorado Republicans want back their state, they need a strategy beyond dumpster-fire Twitter threads: build from the ground up, actually govern where you can, and stop pretending purity tests win elections. The ball is in our court, but first we must learn to play as a team—not as a bunch of self-appointed keyboard generals.
