Now may be the time to speculate on what political and governmental life in Colorado will be like if it remains a “one-party” Democratic state.

Colorado went blue in the 2020 elections, with Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Hickenlooper scoring impressive victories over their Republican opponents. This of course built on a blue wave in 2018.

And as the New York Times reported this week, four of Colorado’s metropolitan areas (Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver) were among the leading areas in America swinging more Democratic in 2020 than in 2016.

So one-party politics could already be here in Colorado.

One change is already in progress. The Democrats are exceeding the Republicans in political party registration. There are 1,129,733 active registered Democrats in Colorado, about 100,000 more than the 1,028,239 active registered Republicans. Of course, the largest numbers of active voters in Colorado register unaffiliated (1,541,1999), yet Democrats have a solid lead among those who choose to register in one major political party or the other.

We expect the Democratic Party lead in registered voters to grow. The increase in registered Democrats will be driven in part by the fact registrants are likely to perceive that most of the statewide officials in Colorado are Democrats. That makes registration as a Republican less attractive because you will not be able to vote in the Democratic primary, the election in which the real decision is made as to who will hold statewide office in Colorado.

In Colorado nowadays you have to be registered either Democratic or unaffiliated to vote in the Democratic primary.

It can be argued that exactly that situation existed in the 2020 U.S. Senate race in Colorado. Winning the Democratic primary, in which he had to defeat former Colorado Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, was a tougher fight for John Hickenlooper than defeating his Republican opponent in the general election.

Polls showed Republican Cory Gardner with little chance of winning from the beginning to the end of the Senate election, mainly because he was a Republican. That he was a Republican, however, hurt him less than that he was seemingly running on a Trump-Gardner ticket.

Also driving up Democratic voter registrations will be the plans of young Colorado women and men with political ambitions. Since registering Republican may be a liability for winning high office, the politically ambitious may likely put aside their real party preferences and decide to register Democratic.

As the Democratic primary election becomes the main event in statewide election to office, voter turnout in the Democratic primary will go up. In the meantime, voter turnout in general elections will stay steady or go down because the Democrats may regularly win most elections. News media may increasingly give top billing to the Democratic primaries for statewide office and take a ho-hum attitude toward the “one party always wins” general election.

As the Republicans fall further behind the Democrats in statewide Colorado, the party will become limited geographically to those areas, mainly rural agricultural counties and outlying suburbs of major metropolitan areas, where Republican voters still predominate. The Republican Party’s last remaining area of real political strength will be electing county commissioners and other county officials in the under-populated regions of the state.

The same will be true of those Republicans who succeed in getting elected to the state legislature. They may become a permanent minority, and they will spend much of their time criticizing the Democratic majority in both the state Senate and the state House of Representatives with little political effect.

Competition over bills in the state legislature will often be between moderate Democrats and progressive Democrats rather than between Democrats and Republicans. When the Democrats split on a controversial bill, the Republicans could cast deciding votes on a few bills. Obviously, when the Democrats are united, the Republicans will be outvoted – and lose – most of the time.

We might see a “problem solving” caucus emerge in the Colorado legislature similar to what has happened in the U.S. House of Representatives. Moderate Democrats, hoping to weaken the forces of far- left members will reach out to moderate Republicans to seek more centrist legislation. This will probably be inevitable in Colorado, at least on some policy issues such as water, criminal justice reform, and infrastructure.

For a while at least, the Republicans should continue to dominate in sizeable metropolitan areas outside the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area. We are talking here about El Paso County (county seat Colorado Springs), Weld County (Greeley), Douglas County (Castle Rock), and Mesa County (Grand Junction). But even these current GOP stalwarts are not as Republican as they once were, and their downtown urban cores are turning Democratic.

As the Democrats take more control of government policy and practice in a one-party Democratic Colorado, the Republicans’ main chance at winning statewide political office will come when the Democrats make mistakes or push too far to the left or otherwise antagonize large numbers of moderate voters. And all of these things can happen. The statewide office of governor is where the results of this disenchantment with the dominant Democrats will first likely appear. An occasional charismatic Republican candidate for governor, pledging to clean up the Democratic mess in Denver, will win the governorship, temporarily clip the wings of the dominant Democrats, and might even win reelection.

That’s what happened in states like Massachusetts, Maryland, and Vermont. In one-party Democratic Massachusetts, Republican Charlie Baker is a popular two-term Republican governor. In one-party Democratic Maryland, Republican Larry Hogan has been elected and reelected by pledging to correct the faults of Maryland Democrats. Note that these are relatively progressive Republicans as is their colleague in Vermont. We might anticipate the same kind of occasional Republican governors in one-party Democratic Colorado.

Many independents in Colorado and elsewhere like the “check and balance” of having the governorship in different party hands than in their one-party dominated state legislature. That is probably why there are Democratic governors in a number of Republican states right now, as in Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

For the present, however, the Democratic Party has out-organized the Republican Party in Colorado. With all major statewide offices occupied by Democrats, including two U.S. senators, the GOP in Colorado has fewer places to go to groom candidates for statewide offices in future elections.

Republicans do, however, run a handful of our bigger cities, with Mayor John Suthers in Colorado Springs and Mayor Mike Coffman in Aurora being the most visible examples.

Things are going to be politically and governmentally different in Colorado if we remain a one-party Democratic state.