Doug Lamborn (R - CO) announce he will not be running for the House this year. He represents Colorado Springs which has been deep red but over the last year or two has started to drift to the purple. I suspect it will stay red and probably MAGAred (new Crayola color idea) but it will be an interesting watch to see by what margin. More significant is that out of 3 Pub Representatives, 2 (Lamborn & Buck) have called it quits and the third (Boebert) is changing districts to replace Buck. Her old district may be a pickup for Team Blue.
I think it’s early enough that the 3rd will stay red - Boebert is carpetbagging because there’s a good chance she loses the primary, and I don’t know that the Western Slope is excited for a Democrat unless they’re running against Boebert. Adam Frisch almost beat her last time, and he’s built up a pretty sizeable warchest, from all accounts. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the opportunity to run against Boebert this time around.
The 5th…I don’t know. COS may be trending left as the population explodes, but it’s slow and there’s a long way to go. Shit, someone decided to burn a cross during the last mayoral runoff because one of the candidates was Black. There’s a lot of retired military, religious righies, and just plain assholes to work against. That said, Doug Lamborn is a cowardly piece of trash who quite often ignores his constituents, so I won’t be sad to see him go. I’ll hope for someone moderate that gives a damn, but I’ll be surprised if there’s not still three Republicans representing Colorado next year.
Speaking as a Colorado Springs resident, yes, it’s -changing- but the deep down reactionary groups, and especially the multitude of churches are still the rocks on which the waves of change are breaking.
And since the influx tends towards more liberal, it makes the previously entrenched groups much more reactionary and loud. Speaking to @Chisquirrel’s very valid point, you -can- get by as more liberal in terms of social policies, but you damn well better present as an “honest, God-fearing Christian” or you’re sunk. I cannot overstress how hideously reactionary most of the so-called Christians are in this area.
But it is changing. I was pleasantly surprised that when the Club Q shootings happened, that while there was “distaste” for the people at the club, pretty much everyone poured shame on the shooter.
So… I’d give it 8-12 years before I’d give it an evaluation as “competitive” but the right candidates and the right circumstances could give us an upset sooner.
I’ve heard that’s been slowly fading since Dobson left Focus on the Family.
It looks like Dobson is still doing his radio show. And frankly, even with him stepping down from the leadership of the different organizations he likely still holds a great deal of influence over those folks. FoF and the other groups he started are still pretty much just as homophobic, anti-trans and anti-body autonomy as they have ever been to my knowledge.
I would be delighted to see their influence diminish.
FoF has been quieter but that’s about all you can say. This city is IMHO creepily full of churches, and it’s often the smaller ones that are full of splinter whackos.
Still, as I said, it’s getting better, but 80-90% of the local elected position candidates stress all of their Christian credentials, even many of the more ‘liberal’ applicants. It’s pretty deeply entrenched in the mindset of the base population, with the areas around the colleges being substantially better, and the newer residents of course, being rather far removed. Heck, my house is within walking distance of UCCS (barely) and I have 2 houses still flying Trump 2020 flags within 3 blocks!
It’ll happen, but there are far too many older, conservative posters that will vote their prejudices to make change happen fast.