Today, however, unemployment is near 8 percent, and Coloradans are gloomier about the economy and their elected officials. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney and his rivals in Tuesday's party caucuses are counting on that mood to deliver Colorado back to the GOP in November.
"Whoever the Republican candidate is going to be, there's going to be support for that person in Colorado," Republican State Sen. Kent Lambert said, pointing to the unemployment rate as a reason.
The path to the party's nomination cuts through Colorado on Tuesday, when Romney will try to continue his winning streak after back-to-back victories in Florida and Nevada.
The former Massachusetts governor carried the state in the 2008 GOP caucuses, with 60 percent of the vote. His campaign started working here months ago. Romney is bolstered by 289 Mormon congregations, although Latter Day Saints are not as strong a voter bloc as in neighboring Utah and Nevada, where Mormons accounted for roughly a quarter of all caucus-goers Saturday.
"Romney is very well thought of by a lot of Republicans," said Republican State Sen. Ted Harvey, who lives in a conservative Denver suburb. Harvey hadn't decided whom to back in Tuesday's caucuses, but he predicted a Romney win.
Colorado is one of several states that hold GOP caucuses this month, contests in which Romney's rivals - former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas - hope to prevail or at least prove they are still relevant.
Campaigning in the state has been spotty.
Those who have courted voters here, Romney included, have focused on the state's traditional Republican bases of support, including Colorado Springs, where the conservative religious advocacy group Focus on the Family is based. It strongly influenced Colorado politics in the 1980s and 1990s, when the state was solidly Republican.
