National Popular Vote frees candidates to ignore Colorado
The ballot initiative regarding the National Popular Vote compact is officially on the 2020 ballot, so the campaign begins, both sides preparing to spend a small fortune to convince voters to change — or not change — the Electoral College....
Numerous articles and speeches suggest that if Coloradans give away the power of their votes to the larger states, candidates would feel no need to campaign in Colorado. That would end more than a century of important political history.
Since Theodore Roosevelt spent three weeks at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs in 1905, every president but one has visited the Centennial State, some of them many times....
... They came because Colorado’s electoral votes can decide an election. It is an important “swing state” because it is evenly divided and either side can win it. The state has gone Republican 22 times and Democrat 13 times, including the last three....
Herbert Hoover came to Grand Junction in the process of negotiating the Interstate Compact, a deal that makes the Colorado River the lifeblood of 30 million people in seven states. It has also been a sore subject for water leaders in California ever since. They continually lobby to rewrite the compact to give California a greater share of the river....
... presidential candidates carefully avoid that issue, lest they risk losing the electoral votes of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada. But there are more voters in California than all the other six states combined, so Coloradans need to ask themselves a very simple question: without the need for electoral votes, why would future candidates NOT promise California more water?...
The Electoral College is not irrelevant history. It is a vital protection for the people and communities of small states and rural communities.
CAIRCO Research