People Are Leaving Colorado. Why?

I found this article while reviewing Google Alert articles for the day earlier this week.

There is a growing number of residents leaving the Colorful State and going elsewhere. California is enduring a large net migration, as are other major blue states. At this time, Colorado is barely a mixed-rule state, where the Republicans still hold a slim majority in the state senate. The current governor, John Hickenlooper, will be leaving office because of term limits. There may be a chance, however slight, that a Republican can regain the governor's mansion.

Here are the statistics on immigration and emigration for Colorado:

New annual figures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show that 193,000 Coloradans moved away last year, 10,000 more than in 2015, while 223,000 moved here, down about 4,000 from the year before but still well above recent years.

“We are seeing that there has been an increase in outs — the highest on record,” said state demographer Elizabeth Garner.

Colorado may be turning into another form California, and thus another Virginia, in which big government policies have turned a reddish state into a purple battlefield, and now a reliably blue one. Obama won this state twice, and Hillary Clinton won Colorado, too. I fear this is what is really happening in Colorado, a state overrun with illegals, welfare queens, pot heads, and big government bureaucrats looking for easy money and abject liberalism.

Despite the fact that a Republican captured the US Senate seat against Mark Udall in 2014, the state is trending blue. Democrats worked this state over pushing big money, left-wing donors, and concentrated interest groups. And now they have pandered to illegal aliens, allowing them to drive and thrive in the state despite federal sanctuary. Denver, Colorado is an obsequious sanctuary city, too.

As recently as 2013, Californians fleeing the high taxes and regulatory burdens of their home state were flocking to Colorado and turning that state bluer. Unfortunate but true. The California political mentality is creating more problems for other states, too, like Nevada, where the number of native-born Nevadans are outnumbered by out-of-state transplants. They want a decent fiscal and tax policy, but their decidedly liberal on cultural issues like abortion, homosexuality, and gun ownership.

Sad but true, and native Coloradans, the conservative enclaves in and around the state, are getting tired of it. The divide among Republicans on this issue has made their efforts at statewide winning more difficult, too, no doubt, especially when in 2014 the two gubernatorial challengers  split the vote and Hickenlooper won a second victory.

What are listed reasons for the migration out of Colorado.

1. High traffic

Denver has much more traffic now. Illegal immigration, folks. This state passed legislation to allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses. This ugly policy faced immense pushback in in California in 2002, and it later resulted in Governor Gray Davis' recall. Now, the licenses have returned, and the opposition is gone, since most Californians have simply fled the state.

2. Low-paying jobs.

Where has all the industry gone? The pot wars gave the state a black eye, perhaps. Wasn't marijuana supposed to bring in a revived, thriving market for the state?

3. High and rising rents.

These are three issues plaguing Californians, by the way.

Democratic dominance is turning once beautiful and inhabitable states into unwelcoming urban areas where rural and suburban homeowners and dwellers no longer feel welcome. At one point, ten of the conservative, more rural counties wanted to secede from Colorado and form their own states.

The same movement is taking hold in Northern Colorado, which is extensively rural and very conservative. The quality of life is in steep decline in urban areas, and yet those sections of the state have the most political power.

The Denver Channel reports that Coloradans are migrating to the following states:

• Washington: 8,525
• Arkansas: 2,651
• Nebraska: 2,507
• Idaho: 1,507
• Montana: 1,187
• Kentucky: 985
• Minnesota: 966
• Wisconsin: 886
• Texas: 871
• Massachusetts: 850

Most of the states are GOP trifectas. Montana is a red state with a blue governor, but he governs like a Republican for the most part. Minnesota will probably become a GOP trifecta next year. Massachusetts has a fiscally conservative governor.

Colorado has become less inhabitable because of Democrats. They opened up the floodgates to liberal elites who pursue progressive fantasies, but ignore the needs of average Americans, including American workers. They embraced illegal aliens and feel-good policies, which are harming individual liberties. Native residents and working people want to be left alone to live their lives as they please. Progressives don't like that, and their policies are driving more people away.