While the Denver Post has hypothesized that Jefferson County will decide which presidential candidate Colorado selects, USA Today is hedging its bets on a different Colorado county playing a deciding role: Arapahoe.
As USA Today's Susan Page writes, "The presidential contest between John McCain and Barack Obama this fall is likely to be settled in places such as Clackamas, Arapahoe and Geauga. Suburban counties including these — outside Portland, Denver and Cleveland, respectively — have become the hardest fought and most closely won battlegrounds of national elections."
As Page theorizes, strategists can no longer draw finite lines between the ways cities and suburbs perform. "A generation ago, cities were considered predominantly Democratic and suburbs safely Republican, but the political leanings of suburbs shifted as they became more racially diverse and densely populated. Most Americans now live in suburbs."
Also of note in the piece, Robert Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, says suburban voters tend to be "pragmatists and non-ideological, and they want problems fixed." At the top of their list? The high price of gas.