Why did Colorado shift so far to the left?

[Xing]

I remember pre election when many people said Colorado would be within 10 and closer than New Mexico. I also remember people saying Virginia would vote to the left of CO, for instance (VA was D+10 and CO D+14-15).

However CO swung 9-10 points Democrat, and was a 14 point win for Biden. This is way more than anyone expected, and at this rate I think CO will vote to the left of many historically Dem states in the NE by the end of the decade.

Seriously, the only reason why that state isn’t D+20 is because of old school Republicans who are still hanging around in the suburbs in places like El Paso, Pueblo, and Douglas County, and GOP improvements among Hispanics, and also in Southern Colorado which probably helped stop the bleeding.

Was it really weed legalization or Bay Area Californians moving to the Denver area? If anyone can explain this, I’d be happy.

That's probably a lot of it. I'm just amazed how Republicans have collapsed in El Paso. It's the reverse Miami-Dade. It's become like the anti Missouri.

Trump still won El Paso County by about 11%, but yes, it did swing heavily Democratic, and Biden was the first Democrat in more than fifty years to break 40% here. The electoral map of Colorado from last year is fascinating to see:

Although Trump won more counties than Biden-county maps, as we very well know, are very deceptive (i.e. "land doesn't vote, people do"). The Plains Counties in the East and the Mountain Counties in the West where Trump got over 60%, 70%, or 80% of the vote are very sparsely populated and cast a trifling number of votes. The vast majority of Colorado's population-probably around two-thirds-lives in the Front Range Urban Corridor, which I would define as consisting of Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, Pueblo, and Weld Counties.

Trump only won three of these counties (Douglas, El Paso, and Weld), and the first two, as noted, swung strongly Democratic. He lost Pueblo County by about 1.9%, and lost all of the others by double digits or more. Arapahoe County voted over 60% Democratic, the first time ever, to my knowledge, that it has done so. Biden got nearly 80% in Denver and well over three-quarters in Boulder.

It was quite surprising to see El Paso get so close. Grand nearly flipping, after being a 13-point win in 2016, was also surprising. Do you think Grand could flip in 2024?