Colorado is a fascinating state. The eastern third is completely flat, while the rest of the state is collection of gorgeous mountain ranges and the highest peaks in the US outside of California, Alaska, and Hawai’i. It’s home to one of the most liberal cities in the country (Boulder) and one of the most conservative (Colorado Springs — the HQ of Focus on the Family, a homophobic hate group). It’s the state that subjected us to Lauren Bobert (CO-03), but also where Biden beat Trump in 2020 by 55-42. And in 2018, it elected Jared Polis as its first openly gay and Jewish governor. Polis even married his long-time partner last September in a traditional Jewish ceremony, becoming the first sitting governor to have a same-sex wedding.
Even conservatives grudgingly admit he’s doing a good job as governor. Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, wrote in 2020: Colorado Governor Jared Polis is Exhibiting Civility and Common Sense in the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Our state’s governor is Jared Polis, a first-term Democrat. Governor Polis and I disagree on many significant issues, but I have respected his leadership throughout this [Covid] crisis.
Unlike some governors of other states who seem detached from the consequences of prolonged closure on ordinary citizens desperate to provide for their families, Mr. Polis has exhibited common sense – something that is all too uncommon these days.
And what’s the good news I just found? It’s in The Hill: Polis: GOP trying to ‘manage everybody’s lives’
This November, 36 governorships, including Polis’s, are up for grabs, alongside all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats. Colorado’s Republican primary takes place on June 28, with several candidates vying to take on the Democratic incumbent.
Thus far, however, most projections forecast Polis’s reelection. A February Denver Post story described the governor as “more popular in Colorado than his State Capitol colleagues and President Joe Biden,” citing data from the Republican State Leadership Commission. [emphasis added]
That’s not to say FOTF and other conservatives won’t be gunning for Polis in the fall election. But Polis says he knows how to fight them off.
Polis (D) says he remains resilient in a notoriously “purplish” state by focusing on the empowerment of individual voters.
“Colorado is a very independently minded, freedom-oriented state, and they don’t want Republicans or Democrats telling them what to do,” Polis told The Hill. . .
Asked about the country’s political divisions, Polis said that he still believes that “both parties are broad tents,” although he described “an ascendancy in the Republican Party” of efforts to “manage everybody’s lives.”
“I don’t think it plays well with voters,” he said.
(I think he’s being overly generous to today’s GOP, but it could be a tactical move.)
Democrats who “espouse responsibility and empowerment,” could see voters “flocking from the Republican Party,” if the GOP continues “telling them how to live their lives and when and if they can have children,” according to Polis.
Now, Colorado is a quintessential Western state, in that it stresses independence and self-reliance, though it does not, so far I can tell, have the same automatic anti-government reflex of, say, Idaho. And while Polis tells his fellow Democrats to tailor his message to fit each individual state, and he also worries about the impact of inflation, the nationwide message that I read in his strategy is to hit the Republicans, and hit them hard, on their efforts to tell everyone else what they can and cannot do in the most private and personal affairs.
Polis is popular in Colorado not only because he did things to make their lives better, but also because Coloradans, even conservatives who think he’s going to hell, know he’s working to make their lives better. That’s the second takeaway I find in the Polis story: Democrats can win when we make people realize how good a job we’re doing for them — and how much better a job we could do if Republicans didn’t keep trying to stop us.