Why did Bob Dole win Colorado in 1996?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Colorado was a different state in the 90s, it's reputation was more that of an evangelical stronghold. It still has a lot of evangelicals but they're out voted. Back then they weren't, liberal transplants were coming but they hadn't hit criticality yet.

Also in addition to tourism metro Denver's economy was mostly based on things like insurance, banking and defense contractors at the time. The tech industry that has a strong foothold in Denver now didn't really exist there at the time. Denver was still a pretty "hip" city even at the time, but the suburbs were quite conservative.

And as noted Colorado had a very Republican voting record at the time. The exceptions were the 1964 landslide and 1992 when Perot probably changed things there.