3rd-party candidates received 21.1% of vote in 1992, 8.8% of vote in 1996, 10% in 2016;
Segregationist George Wallace received 10.7% of the vote in 1968.
Trump received 23,600 more votes than he did in 2016, a 13% increase, Biden received 53,941 more votes than Clinton did in 2016, an increase of 50%.
Trump's share of the vote increased by 2.7 percentage points. Biden increased Clinton's share of the vote by almost 9 percentage points.
NPR, 2/5/2021
The county, home to Colorado Springs, sits about an hour south of Denver and has long been a bastion of conservative politics, even as the state has trended blue. It's home to the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, the U.S Air Force Academy and multiple military bases. he latest controversy erupted over the upcoming meeting to select the next county chair. A tentative agenda listed a local militia group as providing security. Some Republicans feared it could intimidate attendees and Bremmer says he's worried the meeting won't be safe.
El Paso County's population has doubled, to an estimated 720,402, since the 1984 election. This growth has served as a moderating influence, making much of a conservative bastion, and eliminating its ability to help neutralize the Democratic votes in the Denver metro area.
% of population 25 and older with bachelor's degree:
- 38.6% - El Paso County
- 41.0% - Colorado
- 32.1% - U.S.
% of population 65 and older:
- 13.2% - El Paso County
- 13.4% - Colorado
- 16.5% - U.S.
% of population living in poverty:
- 10.1% - El Paso County
- 10.9% - Colorado
- 10.5% - U.S. (they're joking, of course)
Add in El Paso County's diverse population (69% white, 17% Hispanic, 6.4% African-American, 3% Asian to the above mix, and you have a place where Trumpism isn't a sustainable longterm strategy for the GOP. And having a county chair who traffics in Covid hoaxes one year into the pandemic is a boogie that leads in only one direction.
Related reading:
Colorado Sun, 11/10/2020
The most noticeable difference is how Trump’s vote totals shrank in Republican-heavy counties. In El Paso — home to conservative hub Colorado Springs — Trump’s margin of victory this year sat near 11 percentage points compared to 22 percentage points four years ago. In Douglas County to the south of Denver, it went from an 18-point win to a 7-point margin. The 2020 vote suggests the days are gone when big Republican vote totals in El Paso and Douglas counties neutralized the big Democratic numbers in Denver and Boulder.
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