Last year, more people moved out of Colorado to other states than vice versa. Interstate “net migration” was negative.
After factoring in births, the state’s overall population increased less than half a percent. That’s the lowest since the oil and gas bust of 1989 nearly a half century ago.
These figures put Colorado in the bottom half of population growth. We’re 29th of the 50 states. Neighboring Utah grew at the fifth-highest rate, so Colorado can’t blame it on the demise of the carbon-spewing, environment-wrecking, injury-causing, traffic-jamming ski industry which is mired in a record snow drought.
Colorado used to be cool. It was young, vibrant, virile. Colorado often led the nation in the youth and fitness of its residents.
It was the state to move to. Hardly anyone was born here. Even I wasn’t, though I’ve lived 90% of my life here. If you said you were born here, you were either a cowboy or a liar. (Nobody is both.)
Like a lot of low-density farming and ranching states, Colorado was a red state before “red state” was coined. Then it was a purple state for a brief transition in the late 20th century. Now it’s a deep blue state.
Colorado has not had a Republican governor for 19 years. The next one won’t be, either. The state legislature is overwhelmingly far-left Democrat, and routinely passes full-blown whack-job legislation that even the Democrat governor opposes.
All seven of the state Supreme Court Justices are Democrat appointees (who became a laughing stock after the real Supreme Court issued a 9-0 smack-down of their disqualification of Donald Trump from the 2024 state ballot).
Colorado College, once a gem of a liberal arts college, has fallen to a ranking of 370 in the latest Wall Street Journal college rankings, which puts it somewhere between Howard (that’s spelled with a “ow” not a “arv”) and the University of Alabama.
Alumni donations to the school are down as well. Perhaps all this has something to do with the fact that CC’s obsession with DEI (call it CC-DEI) drove them over a cliff into abandoning the SAT.
That’s right, today’s CC students get admitted not with test scores, but with skin color. The SAT was an inconvenient obstacle to that.
Needless to say, most sizeable Colorado cities including Denver (ruled by Democrat mayors for the last 73 years), Boulder, Fort Collins, Longmont, Lakewood, Durango and Greeley are “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement is prohibited from cooperating with federal officials enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.
So how did Colorado go from paradise to parasite?
It’s not because the politics of the people changed. Rather, it’s because the people themselves changed. Back when Colorado was a hip place to move to, the hipsters moved here in droves. Hipsters, in case you haven’t noticed, tend to be Democrats.
Legalizing pot in Colorado also helped. In case you haven’t noticed, heavy pot smokers tend to be Democrats, as well.
Swarms of Democrats fled the hell of Democrat-controlled California. Utterly devoid of any perception of cause-and-effect (notwithstanding their preaching about “science”), they bring with them the Democrat policies that caused the hellish effect that they fled in California to inflict on the heavenly refuge of Colorado.
It’s the same everywhere. Californians flee their self-made hell but ignorantly bring with them the policies that created it. That pattern continues for a while, until the hellish policies of the newcomers turn their new heavenly refuge into a hell of its own. The next thing you know, people are fleeing that heaven-turned-hell, too.
Even then, Democrats remain incapable or unwilling to connect the dots between the hellish policies they enact in the statehouse and the living hell they produce on the ground.
And so, they flee to another new heaven – maybe Montana, maybe Idaho, maybe Utah. Naturally, they again take the same hellish policies that caused them to flee Colorado and, before that, caused them to flee California.
I wish these people who faithfully chant “I believe in science” would learn about cause and effect.
the Aspen beat 
My beloved Colorado. May she rest in peace.
Moved here 5 years ago from Central Florida.
Yeah, call me insane. But at least I moved to the (relatively) Conservative Western Slope (Cedaredge.)
Moved for family. Parents and Uncle are getting up there, and I wanted to be with them. And frankly, I’ve been coming to Colorado since the 70’s when my Uncle moved to ColoSpgs. I love this state. I hate the Front-Range (and your Aspen) government. But I’m not giving up.
There’s nowhere else I want to be. Maybe, some day, some sense will reign.
I grew up in Leadville in the 60s/70s. It’s been a mess since the 90s. The schools are now terrible and scores are subpar. But the leftists in town think everything is just great!
I too grew up in Leadville and Climax starting in the early 50’s. Mom and Dad started the first radio station in Leadville, KLVC. I was in the last Graduating class from the old LHS in 1963. Your right, Leadville is a liberal hell hole now….completely different and ruined. They took it over, it was always kind of a Democrat town, but that didn’t really matter back then, it was an old timey mining mountain town, and politics didn’t effect much of anything bad.
Now…Oh my, what a shame. Now I live In Pueblo West, Pueblo County. Historically politically Democratic, put still a world different then the Front range sanctuary cities. People here actually try and live a reasonable older Colorado life, and even make decisions on what is good and right, even though it still leans Dem, but Southern Colorado still has some of the old Colorado left. And, I am not a liar, but was born in Pueblo during ww2.
Driving around Houston, I was accustomed to regularly seeing the California license plates on neighboring cars. But in the last 3-4 years, I have noticed a distinct uptick in the number of Colorado plates I’ve been seeing. Check your politics at the state line, folks…..
We’ve joined the multitudes of weary citizens who left liberal states for Florida. But a majority of the influx have not brought liberal voting patterns with them. 6-yrs ago, Florida had 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Now, Florida has 1.2 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. That’s a swing of 1.5 million votes! Florida is solidly RED, now, thank God.
This is gonna come as a shock to you guys, but I am considering moving TO Colorado. I’m an outdoors guy and need to be hiking in the mountains, flyfishing etc.. I’ve lived in NYC for 50 years so I think I know how to ignore the politics. Of course not not in Denver but I am considering Salida or Buena Vista. Any ideas welcome, thanks!
Both are fine little towns, and safely away from the ski resorts. In both cases, you’ll need to learn to mispronounce the Spanish names, else the locals will think you’re puttin’ on airs.
Be aware that both get pretty cold in the winter and are 2+ hours from quality medical care in Denver. My impression is that Salida is a bit more liberal than Boonie.
Ha! Mispronunciation is a specialty of mine. Thanks, Glenn. Much appreciated. Always enjoy your work!
The idiot leftist new comers are calling Buenie, BV. Makes me cry.
Having grown up in Leadville, Climax from the early 50 to the late 70’s, I remember it being pretty common to refer to Buena Vista as “Buunee” not sure how to spell it phonetically….it was a fairly common as I recall. We also knew how to spell and say it correctly….sort of. We got Buena part right in Spanish, but the Vista part had the Spanish pronunciation of “I” wrong.
Rifles, CO was a great place to hunt Elk back in the 1960s. Maybe still is but haven’t been back for many years.
When I moved to Fort Collins in 1966 the culture of the town, and most of the state, was “mind your own business”. When I left in 1998 the culture was “conform” and “we’ll mind your business for you.” My kids and I went up Arthur’s Rock on the 4th of July, watched the fireworks, and spent the night. We spent time arrowhead hunting. We went to the teepee rings southwest of town and set pondering why the Indians chose that spot to live, for awhile. The Colorado I loved quit existing in the 1990s in large part due to an invasion. We desperately needed a secure border, around California, and now around Colorado.
Glenn, you are doing God’s work, between killing the ski industry and increasing departures from the state. And two comments:
2. When I lived in Denver 1975-1978, it was a genuine novelty to meet a “born and raised” Coloradan. Everybody was from Philly, Chicago or Boston. I presume California had not yet become unlivable, like it is today. And now the front range is unlivable.
Colorado was stolen by the left. They put Soros money in Jena Griswold’s campaign, established mail in ballots and then proceeded to steal every election. Now they don’t even bother to listen to the pesky voters. It’s all written out in “The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado.”
Tina Peters is in prison right now, a Gold Star mom who realized that Mesa County votes were being manipulated. She obeyed the law by saving a copy of the voting records, and they jailed her for it. I hope some very sincerely polite feds show up at her prison and find a way to get her out before they kill her.
The good guys are going to win Colorado back, I hope. Commies make terrible leaders. Everything turns to disaster when they seize control.
We’re conservatives, moved to Colorado from Cali in 1989. Worked in downtown Denver, lived in Gilpin County. Loved Denver back then and loved living surrounded by nature. It was sad to see the wrong kind of Californians flooding into the state after our arrival. Wrong think Californians and legalized pot destroyed Colorado.