Research Fellow John C. Fortier

Denver is on Barack Obama's mind, and not just because of the Democratic convention in August.

Colorado and neighboring Southwestern states Nevada and New Mexico could be the key swing states this November. These states have growing Hispanic populations that may make them more Democratic in future elections. But more important for 2008 are their large blocs of nonreligious white voters for whom Obama holds a strong appeal.

In 2004, John F. Kerry would have won the election had he carried Ohio and its 20 electoral votes. Now envision a very close contest between Obama and John McCain, but assume that McCain wins a close victory in Ohio because of Obama's weakness with white working-class voters. Where could Obama turn for electoral votes to put him over the top?

Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Combined, they have 19 electoral votes, each registered close Republican victories in 2004, and they have been trending Democratic in recent years.

It is not an accident that Democrats picked Denver as their 2008 convention site. The choice conveys the message that Democrats plan to compete in the Southwest, which was once a solidly Republican region. It is likely, as John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira have argued in "The Emerging Democratic Majority," that over the next 10 years Hispanic immigration will move these states (and more solidly Republican Arizona) toward the Democratic column.

In Colorado, the Hispanic percentage of the population has increased from 12 percent in 1988 to 20 percent in 2004. In Nevada, it went from 10 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2004. New Mexico has had a historically high percentage of Hispanics, whose regional heritage dates back to the 1500s. New Mexico has also shown an increase in its Hispanic population, from 33 percent in 1988 to 42 percent in 2004.

But despite these upticks in the Hispanic population in Colorado and New Mexico, Hispanics have not increased as a percentage of voters. Some Hispanics are noncitizens, and many are under the age of 18 and not able to vote. And many are young or recently settled residents, who tend to vote at a lower rate than that of the rest of the population. The picture is slightly different in Nevada, where in 1992 and 1996 only between 3 percent and 4 percent of voters were Hispanic. In 2000 and 2004, they made up between 6 percent and 8 percent of voters, but Hispanics are still a relatively small percentage of voters.

Though the long-term trend of Hispanic immigration may make these three states more Democratic, the relatively steady Hispanic percentage of the vote in recent elections shows that the reasons for political shifts in these states, especially Colorado, lie elsewhere. Obama likely can make these states competitive not because of a surge in Hispanic voting, but by winning over less religious white voters who make up a relatively high proportion of voters in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

The Pew Center for Religion includes in its unaffiliated voter category atheists, agnostics, seculars without any church affiliation and some religious people who don't affiliate with a church. Twenty-five percent of Coloradans and 21 percent of Nevadans and New Mexicans identify as unaffiliated, compared with only 16 percent of the nation.

It is no secret that Hillary Rodham Clinton exposed Obama's weakness among white working-class voters. A more careful look at primary results shows that Obama performed poorly among white working-class voters in areas with strong religious ties, but he did much better even among lower income whites in states that were less religious. There were no exit polls in Colorado, New Mexico or Nevada. But in a comparison of Democratic voters in Oregon, another Western state with a high percentage of unaffiliated voters, with those in Kentucky, a state with many religious voters, the trend becomes apparent. Nineteen percent of Kentucky Democratic primary voters said they attend church more than weekly, compared with 4 percent in Oregon. Only 11 percent of Kentucky Democrats said that they never attend church, compared with 34 percent of Oregon Democrats. But low-income and middle-class whites in Oregon voted for Obama, and those in Kentucky backed Clinton by a wide margin.

Obama would be foolish to ignore Ohio, Florida or more traditional swing states. The margin of error for reaching an Electoral College majority would be too slim. But in the end, he might end up winning the presidency while losing the big traditional swing states and winning over less religious white voters in McCain's backyard.

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at AEI.