When a blue tsunami covered the country on Tuesday, El Paso County stayed high and dry, reliably Republican. But the county did not deliver the same huge GOP majorities it has delivered in past elections.

Make no mistake: The Democrats at the top of the El Paso County ballot – Barack Obama for president, Mark Udall for the Senate and Hal Bidlack for the House of Representatives – got stomped in El Paso County. None received 40 percent of the vote – an arbitrary threshold for when political contests become somewhat competitive.

But in 2000 and 2004, George Bush carried El Paso County with 64 percent and 67 percent, respectively. According to final results released by the county clerk’s office on Tuesday, John McCain received 58.97 percent of the vote, fractionally poorer than the 59.04 percent who went for Bob Dole in 1996.

El Paso County Democrats even gained a seat in the Legislature when Dennis Apuan won House District 17. He will join Sen. John Morse and Rep. Mike Merrifield in what John Morris, the El Paso County Democratic Party chairman, said is the county’s biggest Democratic delegation since the Watergate era.

But Morris wasn’t satisfied. “I don’t think we did as well as we should have here in the county,” he said, adding that local Democrats could have won another race or two if the state Democratic Party had helped more local candidates.

“I’m a little upset with folks in Denver, and I’m intending to tell them so,” Morris said.Neither Greg Garcia, the county Republican chairman, nor his executive director, Nathan Fisk, returned calls Wednesday evening.

Colorado Republicans count on lopsided results from El Paso County, the state’s second most populous, to offset Democratic advantages in Denver. But Obama had a 135,223-vote edge in Denver, far outpacing McCain’s 51,244-vote bulge in El Paso County.

Among the state’s most populous areas, McCain also led (with some precincts still not reporting Wednesday evening) in Douglas, Mesa and Weld counties, but his cumulative 50,880-vote edge in those three places was more than offset by Obama’s cumulative 125,401-vote advantage in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Jefferson, Larimer and Pueblo counties.

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Contact the writer: 476-1654 or dean.toda@gazettedev.gazette.com

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