All eyes are on Colorado this election year, as this key \u201cswing state\u201d may determine who will be the next president of the United States.<\/p>\n
Colorado may only have nine electoral votes, but those votes may prove critical this coming November in a presidential race that is predicted to be determined by key swing states.\u00a0 Colorado, along with Ohio, Virginia and Florida, continues to make national headlines as one of the key battleground states.<\/p>\n
Just this week, President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit Fort Collins, Colorado.\u00a0 Fort Collins is situated in Larimer County, considered to be one of three key \u201cswing counties\u201d in this important swing state.\u00a0 Obama needs to win Larimer County, which he carried in 2008.<\/p>\n
Speaking to a mostly youthful crowd of 13,000 at Colorado State University, he emphasized that \u201cWe are greater together.\u201d\u00a0 His 28-minute speech focused on foreign policy, affordable college education, and renewable energy\u2014a key issue in northern Colorado, where Vestas<\/a> has several plants.\u00a0 Obama will return to Colorado again on Sunday when he visits Boulder.<\/p>\n President Obama isn\u2019t the only candidate hitting the campaign trail hard in Colorado, however.\u00a0 Mitt Romney has visited the state 16 times since last summer.\u00a0 And three days after being named the vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket, 42-year-old Paul Ryan was standing in front of an enthusiastic crowd at Lakewood High School in Jefferson County (another one of the three important swing counties in Colorado).\u00a0 Ryan told the crowd \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like the stars and skies and the Colorado Rockies at night.\u201d<\/p>\n But Ryan\u2019s seeming love for the state\u2019s splendor and purple mountain majesties wasn\u2019t the sole reason he was in Colorado.\u00a0 This election, Colorado may be \u201cthe\u201d key swing state in determining the future of our country\u2014and whether Colorado goes red or blue this November could determine the next president of the United States.<\/p>\n But why Colorado?\u00a0 It\u2019s because Colorado has more unaffiliated voters than it has voters associated with either party.\u00a0 Of Colorado\u2019s 3,456,191 registered voters, 1,206,035 are unaffiliated (Independents), 1,124,158 are Republicans, and 1,093,025 are Democrats.<\/p>\n Both campaigns are heavily targeting these unaffiliated voters, especially in the three swing counties of Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Larimer, which contain the most number of unaffiliated voters in the state.\u00a0 All three counties went Democratic in 2008, and these counties are being viewed as key predictors of what will happen on the national level.<\/p>\n Because of its voter composition and potential electoral importance, Colorado continues to be inundated with political advertising and polling.\u00a0 Special interest groups and super-PACs are spending enormous amounts of money on advertising.\u00a0 Of all the swing states, Colorado is receiving the most money per electoral vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although Colorado went Democratic in 2008, the state\u2019s track record reveals that it has voted Republican in every presidential race since 1968, except for 1992 when it chose Clinton.\u00a0 It was the unaffiliated voters who made the difference in 2008, and it will be the unaffiliated voters who will determine which direction Colorado, and potentially the nation, will go in 2012.<\/p>\n This election year, the eyes of the nation will be upon Colorado.\u00a0 As Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said, \u201cThis is one of the most beautiful states in the country.\u201d\u00a0 And it might just be the most important one politically now, as Colorado may determine who the next president of the United States will be.<\/p>\n