Can Colorado swing red again?

>>> t minus four days until the election, and we're focuses on the big battlegrounds in play. colorado is still in the spotlight today with nine laektdal votes. the state went for obama in 2008 but went republican in 2004 . right now early voting shows republicans with an advantage. that could be key because if you look back at 2008 , nearly 80% of colorado voters cast their votes before election day . candidates are focuses efforts here. the president held a rally in boulder yesterday. he'll be back on sunday, and mitt romney is here tomorrow. colorado was the site of the first presidential candidate where romney came out the victor. can he do the same on tuesday? i have colorado going blue on my map.

>> all right, lady.

>> i think there's two pieces of silver lining here for romney , aside from that early voting statistic we just discussed. colorado has a largish mormon population and they've been busing mormons in actually to work on romney 's ground game. that could help. the jobless rate is not great in colorado . na might make mitt's message more effective. i'm sure i referenced this book before, the blueprint, that chronicles the five years colorado flipped from blue to red in time for --

>> red to blue.

>> red to blue in time for 2008 . the kind of groundwork that was laid down by democratic activists and union guys, that is not dismantled overnight. i think that a lot of that is still very in play and very much foundational and that will give obama the win.

>> i had a harder time making the call on who to give colorado to than any other state. i ultimately went with romney , but i can be easily persuaded. i have a feeling it's the closest state margin-wise election night . colorado symbolizes the political promise the obama presidency began with and the political reality of the presidency. colorado is a long-time target for democrats. they finally flipped in 2008 . it was republican for decades except for in 1992 and flipped it in aa big way in 2008 . nine point victory. the persist ents unemployment and economic problems dragged down the approval rating. colorado was ready it to revert to form, to old republican form in 2010 , part of the national anti-republicans. a funny thing happened in the campaign. in the u.s. senate race it was buck against bennett. ken buck likened homosexuality to alcoholism and alienated this growing population of college educated socially liberal women who are upset with obama on the economy, but because of social issues they move strongly against ken buck. you see a big gender gap that took place in colorado , 56% to 40%. the growing latino population in colorado and the other thing in 2010 in colorado is he imploded and it became tom tancredo , the former republican congressman. he had the latino vote in colorado . what would have been a republican win in the senate race, because of those factors was a narrow michael benefit win. that is the model the obama campaign has been pursuing nationally here. this year you drive up the support among socially liberal women and drive up the latino support. we won a state they should have won in 2010 and win an election they should have won.

>> you're the only person having colorado going red?

>> i have it failing in colorado but working elsewhere.

>> like you colorado and florida were the two toughest calls for me on my map. i muoved colorado in the blue column like the brilliant s.e. cupp. i've been having my doubts about colorado . looking at the early voting numbers, but yesterday the president was in boulder at university of colorado . i was looking at that crowd, those young people are so fired-up. there were over 10,000 of them there. any youth apathy seems to be gone. totally stoked, i might say. and on a completely separate note, there will be another issue on the ballot on tuesday, amendment 64 to legalize marijuana use.

>> that could explain something.

>> in all seriousness, obviously voters under 30 by a broad margin support legalizing marijuana. i think it could drive up -- drive more young people the to the polls. they might be more enthusiastic.

>> i support that idea. ij colorado is blue. i want to revisit the conversation from yesterday where i said florida would go red. i got a couple of calls from serious pollsters said that said i was wrong. they said florida will go blue. on my map they talked about puerto ricans , second generation cubans and younger cubans will carry the president and how florida represents the changing dynamic of america. the panhandle is white but the rest is going more brown and black and white people are not in charge of the rest of the stay electorally as they used to be. this win in particular forces the gop to change their stance on immigration. otherwise, we're going to continue to lose elections for a long time. the pea party is chasing latinos out of the gop, and that is not a long-term winning strategy.