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The Republicans were badly split when Udall won in 2008. Wayne Allard, the incumbent, unexpectedly decided not to seek re-election. Bob Shaffer, a solid conservative, ran, but the party was still roiled by a split and Shaffer had some baggage from a previous race and bad publicity.

No need to go into all the inside baseball details, but former Governor Bill Owens made some bad decisions that split the party back in the 2004-2006 time frame.

Also, this was the election when Obama took Colorado based, in my opinion. on Bush fatigue.

Getting into the weeds a bit, there are reasons Colorado turned blue from red so quickly. None of the state GOP saw it coming and few have figured out how to respond; other than replaying past political tactics. Arapahoe County Republicans have done a good job, as has a few other areas, but the state party has not.

Another star, besides Gardner, has been Scott Gessler who won the Secretary of State position. (He's running for governor in this election.)

To understand it all, it starts with Fred Barnes 2008 article on the Colorado Model. Here.

There's a quick read of how it happened from a 2010 Red State. Here.

The book mentioned is a good read, more in-depth, and shows how other states Democrats are working behind the scenes, here.

Colorado Progressive Democrats do have a good Get Out the Vote effort and it cannot be ignored. Colorado Republicans can win but only if we are united behind a specific candidate, which hasn't happened in some of our past elections. Democrats here work hard to depress the vote and split our tickets.