The AP declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of Colorado as soon as polls closed in the state, even though election officials there had yet to release results from Tuesday’s presidential contest.
The news agency did so after results from AP VoteCast and an analysis of early voting statistics confirmed expectations that the state’s longstanding political trend of favoring Democratic presidential candidates will hold.
VoteCast, the AP’s wide-ranging survey of the American electorate, captures voters’ choices and why they made them.
Colorado was a swing state not that long ago. It voted for Republican Bob Dole over President Bill Clinton in 1996, and swung for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. And state government was solidly Republican until about 15 years ago.
But massive growth in Denver and its surrounding areas ushered in a political shift. Employment opportunities, craft beer brewing, legal marijuana and the state’s rugged and snow-capped mountains drew in new residents — as well as their decidedly more liberal politics.
Democrats now control the governor’s office and the Legislature. In addition to Biden winning the state, former Gov. John Hickenlooper also ousted incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
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