Part of the wave that swept Reagan into the White House, and a GOP majority into the Senate in 1980, was the so-called "Sagebrush Rebellion," a movement in the interior West that was strongly opposed to governmental restrictions on the use of Federal lands, which comprise a significant portion of the land in every Rocky Mountain state.
The so-called rebellion was fueled by the usual combination of corporations and rich individuals that wanted to exploit those lands for profit, but of course it was sold as a libertarian/states-rights struggle of the Little Guy against the Big Bad Federal Government. Plenty of voters swallowed what they were peddling, so the Dems lost Senate seats that year in Idaho, Alaska, Washington, and South Dakota, among others.
As a result of Tuesday's elections, I think we can finally declare an end to that movement. After years of barely showing up in the Rockies, we've proved we've got game in that part of the country. The Sagebrush Rebellion is over.
A few things are going on here, of course. One big thing is that a lot of people in the interior West like to hunt and fish, or are good friends with people who do. And in order to hunt and fish, one needs healthy populations of fish and game. And to have those, one needs an environment where fish and game can thrive. One party's fighting for that, and the other isn't. It's pretty clear to everyone which is which.
Another factor is that some private/corporate users of Federal lands wind up treating the land as their own, and denying access to recreational users. Again, one party's going to be on the side of the big users, and the other's more likely to favor citizen access.
All this has undercut the notion that the Sagebrush Rebellion is really about the Little Guy versus the Feds.
And finally, there's been a gradual influx into the Rockies of people from other parts of the country who appreciate the Rockies for their beauty, and want that protected.
And of course, we've established electoral parity in some Rockies states, and a fair degree of competitiveness in the remaining states. We've got 5 of the 8 governorships in the Rockies, 11 of the 28 House seats (with outside possibilities of winning two more, NM-1 and WY-AL, on recounts), and while we have only 5 of the 16 Senate seats in the region, that's a lagging indicator.
So we're now the insurgent party in the Rockies, making ourselves competitive in a region that had long belonged to the GOP. The Sagebrush Rebellion is now a distant memory, a part of an earlier generation's political history. It's over.