LIVE UPDATES: Fox News Projects President Obama Wins Colorado
UPDATE, 12:10a ET: Fox News projects that President Obama has won Colorado.
UPDATE, 10:40p ET: The Fox News Decision Desk has classified Colorado as too close to call. We are watching the Denver suburbs closely to see whether Obama will be able to match his strong showing there in 2008. That remains unclear at this hour, but Fox hopes to project a winner as soon as possible.
Get continuing updates on the standings of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the state of Colorado, with latest polls, political facts, figures, stories and commentary.
Update: William La Jeunesse reported this morning on voters’ concerns in the swing state of Colorado, including with touch screens casting votes for the wrong candidate.
Current Standing Among Likely Voters:
Barack Obama - 48.3%
Mitt Romney - 47.7%
Poll Times
Open: 9:00a ET
Close: 9:00p ET
2008 Election Results:
Obama - 1,288,633 votes - 53.66%
McCain - 1,073,629 votes - 44.71%
Other - 39,196 - 1.63%
Colorado as a Battleground State
The fact that Colorado is a political battleground is a recent development. Before Obama’s victory in Colorado in 2008, the state had voted reliably Republican in eight of the last nine presidential elections.
Except in 1992, when Clinton won a plurality of its votes in a three-way race, Colorado had gone Republican in
every presidential election since 1968. Until 2008, that is - when Obama carried the state by nine points.
Colorado favored G.O.P. presidential candidates in every election but two -- 1964 and 1992 -- since 1950.
In 2000, Gore won the national popular vote, but George W. Bush easily carried Colorado. In 2002, Republicans held the governorship, the state's two United States Senate seats, five of Colorado's seven seats in the United States Congress, as well as majorities in the Colorado State Senate and Statehouse.
But fast-forward six years, and everything had been reversed. Democrats held both Senate seats, five United States Congressional seats, and majorities in both houses of the Colorado legislature. Republicans were left with only two House seats, exactly what Democrats had been clinging to in 2002.
Colorado is a persuadable state, with a relatively balanced partisan split and a large number of swing voters.
The battle will be for Colorado's huge block of independent voters, who now outnumber both Democrats and Republicans when all registered voters, including both active and inactive voters, are counted. Both campaigns will work furiously to turn out independents, particularly in the heavily populated Denver region, including Arapahoe and Jefferson counties. The challenge for Obama, as an incumbent presiding over a high unemployment rate, will be energizing the voters who turned out for him so enthusiastically four years ago.
Colorado has had its share of economic knocks, and it remains unclear whether Obama supporters are as enthusiastic this time. It's no accident that Obama signed the stimulus into law in Colorado and that his party's 2008 convention was held in Denver.
Republicans say they think Romney can carry Colorado because of dissatisfaction over the economy among its voters -- even those who supported Obama in 2008. They expect social issues to play less of a role in the race.
Colorado is the face of the new West and a new political power. Known for its picturesque mountains and ski resorts, it also is home to enormous energy resources — gas, oil, coal — as well as to aerospace-manufacturing and health-care businesses.
The West's rugged individualism and distaste for government intrusion may play yet play to Republicans' favor this time around.
Colorado is politically divided in its congressional delegation -- Republicans hold a 4-3 edge in the House, and Democrats hold both Senate seats -- and in the state legislature, which has a Republican House but a Democratic Senate.
With nine electoral votes, Colorado is among the smaller prizes of the hotly contested states.
