HOME | BIO | MUSIC | JOURNEYS BY DJ | STUDIO BLOG | POLITICAL BLOG | BOOKING INFO | CONTACT

Day by day, we're seeing more and more evidence that the Mountain West is poised to turn blue. I've been preaching about a western realignment from the very earliest days of this blog (hence its name - Realign This!), but even this news (via Andrew Sullivan) came a a surprise to me:

Predictions that a congressional race in suburban Denver would be among the tightest in the country were deflated Tuesday by a poll showing Democrat Ed Perlmutter with a double-digit lead.

The automated telephone poll conducted by Survey USA for 9News found that 54 percent of likely voters in the 7th Congressional District were supporting Perlmutter, while 37 percent said they would vote for Republican Rick O'Donnell.

Six percent of the 482 respondents were undecided according to the poll that has a 4.5 percentage- point margin of error[...]

Voter registration is split nearly evenly in the 7th among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Poll respondents were 38 percent Republican, 37 percent Democratic and 24 percent independent.

Perlmutter enjoys a 40 percent advantage among self-described moderates, who represented almost half of the poll respondents.

This is precisely how I believe realignments happen. They are, I believe, driven by a combination of two factors: a dramatic shift in allegiance from voters in the center, and a reemergence of active participation by disaffected members of the party in the minority. If this poll is even remotely indicative of what's going on in Colorado, we may very well have a full scale realignment on our hands.