'F' Is for Democrat: Colorado’s Collapse Under One-Party Rule

Colorado's economic report card is in, and my beloved home state — formerly a solid A and B student — just flunked every subject. 

Once upon a time, Colorado was a devilishly weird purple state — home to moderate-to-conservative Republicans like Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Tom Tancredo, idiosyncratic Democrats like Gary Hart and Richard Lamm, and (outside the Denver-Boulder Axis) a healthy libertarian streak.

It was such a swirl that one of those famous Republicans, Campbell, was originally a Democrat.

That all began to change around 2008 when my purple state went deep blue for Barack Obama. By 2018, the hope'n'change was locked in. The last Republican to win statewide office was in 2016, when Heidi Ganahl was elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents. The last Republican to win a Senate seat was Cory Gardner in 2014, and he served but a single term. 

Colorado's Democrats are no longer hard to pin down. The party is increasingly dominated by the hard left, and the party has dominated the general assembly going back to 2018. Today, Dems hold both chambers by a two-to-one margin. Whatever they want, they get.

How's that workin' out for us?

And Another Thing: After my report earlier today on "Self-Occupied Britain," I feel like Mr. Doom-and-Gloom. Maybe I'll devote my next few columns to an in-depth investigation into those adorable LOLcats.

Before we went Full Indigo, Colorado was pretty well run. This is my state — or was, using figures from before 2018:

• Third in the nation for personal income growth.
• A regulatory burden in the lower half of all states.
• Tied for second-lowest unemployment in 2017 at 2.7% — and that wasn’t unusual.
• Job growth of 2.4% in 2017 — typical for a state that was regularly in the top ten.
• A top-10 destination for people moving in from other states.

Colorado wasn't perfect, but we punched above our weight economically and in sheer beauty. Just 11 years old, I fell in love with Colorado's beauty at first sight. I didn't know anything about economics, but I knew then I'd make this place my home — which I did at 25, three decades ago.

And this is my state on Democrats, all taken from the 2024 report card just published by the Denver Gazette:

• 39th in the nation for personal income growth.
• Sixth worst regulatory burden in the nation.
• In March, we had the second-highest unemployment rate (not an atypical month).
• Job-growth rate of 0.17% (March 2024-March 2025), 43rd in the nation.
• A bottom-10 destination for people moving in from other states.

One last note, directly from the Gazette: "Beginning with Senate Bill-181 (2019), Colorado has obstructed energy production — a major Colorado export — at an expense of the state’s economy and high-wage blue-collar jobs." The paper added, "In all, multiple new regulations since 2018 have Colorado producing less oil and gas in 2025 than in 2019, as the country’s production has increased."

And across nearly every other metric — schools, housing, homelessness, crime, addiction, even abortion rates — the numbers all go the wrong way.

I've written already this year about Colorado's new worst-in-the-nation gun control law, and about Gov. Jared Polis's pantomime "will he/won't he" act over signing it into law. There's likely more to come, too, with talk of an "arsenal law" restricting how many guns the state shall deign we may own.

For 45 years, I always thought I'd die in Colorado. Now, like so many others, I'm dying to get out.

Thanks, Dems. 

Recommended: Dispatches From Self-Occupied Britain

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