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UPPER ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST (COLORADO, IDAHO, MONTANA, UTAH, AND WYOMING)
Robert D. Lovey
Colorado College, Colorado Springs
In recent decades the upper Rocky Mountain West has slowly been replacing the Middle West as part of the solid base of support of the Republican Party. It joins the South, recently converted to the Republican presidential cause, as one of the most Republican regions in presidential elections in the nation.
Three states of the upper Rocky Mountain West--Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming--are essentially rural in character, decentralized, and have small populations. Two of them--Idaho and Wyoming--are among the most Republican states in the region. That's the good news for the GOP. The bad news is that, between the two of them, Idaho and Wyoming have only seven electoral votes for president.
Montana is a somewhat different story. Because of the mining industry in western Montana, there are powerful labor unions in the state, and they often help put Montana in the Democratic column in presidential elections. That happened in 1992, when Democrat Bill Clinton narrowly won Montana from George Bush, with Ross Perot coming in a strong third.
The two other states in the upper Rocky Mountain West, Colorado and Utah, have large urban populations concentrated in long megalopolitan strips. Over 80 percent of the electorate in Colorado lives along an urbanized line stretching from Fort Collins on Greeley on the North, to Pueblo on the South. The same is true of Utah, where most of the population resides on a North-South line that runs from Ogden through Salt Lake City to Provo.
Because of its large Mormon population, Utah is one of the most conservative states in the nation and, as a result, one of the most Republican. Colorado, on the other hand, has a substantial Democratic vote in the state capital in Denver and in the steel-mill city of Pueblo. Colorado, like Montana, supported Bill Clinton rather than George Bush in the 1992 presidential race.
Prediction for 1996? No change from 1992. Democratic President Bill Clinton should easily hold the support of Colorado and Montana. Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, three of the most Republican states in the nation, will support Republican Bob Dole.
COLORADO
Colorado voters will decide in an August 13, 1996, primary just who the party standard-bearers will be in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Hank Brown. The hottest race is on the Republican side, where popular Attorney General Gale Norton is locked in a do-or-die struggle with U.S. Representative Wayne Allard. Norton is the more moderate of the two candidates, both of whom are touting their conservative credentials to Colorado GOP voters. Norton, the first woman west of the Mississippi River to ever be elected to state Attorney general, is running well ahead in the polls, but Allard has a better organization and has raised more money, mainly from Washington-based PACs (Political Action Committees). On the Democratic side, Denver attorney Tom Strickland is running, as is former law school dean Gene Nichol. If the Norton-Allard battle gets bitter enough and splits the Republican Party, the Democrats could very well win this one.
Colorado has six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, four held by the Republicans and two by the Democrats. Three Republican incumbents and one Democratic incumbent are expected to be easily reelected. U.S. Representative Wayne Allard is running for U.S. Senate, so there is a hot Republican primary to replace him. The early favorite is GOP state legislator Don Ament. Even more interesting is the race in Denver to replace U.S. Representative Patricia Schroeder, who is retiring. Diana DeGette, a Denver lawyer, has the backing of Emily's List and is considered the favorite to gain the Democratic nomination for this safe Democratic seat.
IDAHO
In Idaho, incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Larry Craig is favored to beat challenger Walter Minnick, a Democrat who once worked for Richard Nixon but subsequently made millions processing waste wood products into usable pressed wood. Minnick is said to be willing to spend $500,000 of his own money in the race. President Clinton is unpopular in Idaho, and Minnick has been separating his campaign from Clinton's as much as possible. Minnick is an environmentalist, and that does not sit too well with the farming-timber-mining culture of Idaho. But Minnick has been scoring points against Craig by strongly opposing more nuclear waste in southeastern Idaho.
Idaho has only two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Incumbent Republican Mike Crapo has a lock on his seat in southern and eastern Idaho. His Democratic opponent, John D. Seidl, is regarded as only token opposition.
Another Republican, Helen Chenoweth, sits in Idaho's other House seat. Chenoweth is one of the most conservative members of Congress, which suits her heavily rural central and northern Idaho district just fine, but she has had some campaign finance problems. Her Democratic challenger, Dan Williams, an attorney from Boise, the state capital which is in this district, and recent fast population growth in Boise could help Williams.
MONTANA
Montana will host one of the most important U.S. Senate races in the northern Rocky Mountain region. Incumbent Democrat Max Baucus, a former professor at the University of Montana, will take on popular Republican Lieutenant Governor Dennis Rehberg. Baucus is in the labor-oriented Democratic tradition of a mining state like Montana, but he has been slow to protect the timber and farming industries in the Big Sky Country from environmental restrictions. Republican Rehberg is short on financing but is waging a grassroots campaign in one of the nation's most decentralized states. A race to watch--closely.
Montana has only one U.S. house district, and it is an open seat in 1996 because incumbent Democrat Pat Williams retired. The Republican candidate, Rick Hill, is from the state capital of Helena. He is a businessman who is regarded as well-informed on Montana issues. The Democratic candidate is Bill Yellowtail, a Native American, who is expected to do well in highly unionized cities such as Butte. Yellowtail will also pull votes in Missoula, where the state university is located.
UTAH
All the excitement in Utah in 1996 is in the three U.S. House races. Enid Green Waldholtz, the freshman Republican who had monumental campaign finance and spouse problems, is stepping down, thereby leaving her seat open. Merrill Cook, a millionaire explosives company executive, will run for the Republicans. He will be opposed by Democrat Ross C. Anderson.
Bill Orton of Provo is a strong Democratic incumbent in the U.S. House from Utah. Christopher B. Cannon, a venture capitalist, will carry the banner against Orton for the Republicans. In the third House race in Utah, also an open seat, Democrat Gregory J. Sanders will face off against Republican James V. Hansen.
There's a gubernatorial race in Utah in 1996. Incumbent Michael O. Leavett, a Republican, is very popular and expected to have no trouble with Democrat Jim Bradley, a former county commissioner.
WYOMING
Wyoming has to fill the big shoes of Republican U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, who is retiring. The candidates will not be known until after the August 20, 1996, Wyoming primary elections. On the Republican side John Barrasso, a physician from Casper, is well-financed and expected to do well. He openly admits he moved to Wyoming several years ago for the express purpose of running for the U.S. Senate. Other strong Republicans in the race are Mike Enzi, a state legislator from Gillette, and another state legislator, Curt Meier. But the Democrats have a strong candidate too. She is Kathy Karpan, the former secretary of state in Wyoming, who almost won Wyoming's single U.S. House seat in 1994. Wyoming is "red rock western Republican," but Karpan is regarded as having a chance.
In Wyoming's one U.S. House seat, incumbent Republican Barbara Cubin is one of those famous 1994 GOP freshmen in the House. She won with only 53 percent of the vote in 1994. Opposing her will be Democrat Pete Maxfield, a University of Wyoming law professor.
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