Colorado Springs Survives The Election

The election is over. The winners have had their day, the losers have had their chance, time to get on with life.

El Paso County (which Colorado Springs is a part of) voted almost 60% for Mitt Romney, in keeping with the deep conservative tradition here. Not enough to carry the state, but a substantial majority. Despite a large military population (5 bases!), there is a general distrust of the federal government’s ability to manage our money (or maybe because of the 5 bases …?), and anything that sounds like taxes has a hard time here. Locally however, confidence is a little higher, and we did get some additional funds for local initiatives like fire, law enforcement and transportation.

The biggest surprise in Colorado was the legalization of marijuana. There is a certain amount of libertarian sentiment here, and it isn’t entirely shocking to find out that some people who voted Republican also voted for legalization. The measure actually carried even in El Paso county, although by a scant 10 votes. I personally don’t believe that there will be a new Colorado Springs real estate boom because of it, but it definitely has put Colorado on the map with some 🙂

So the sun still rises over the prairie, and sets over Pikes Peak. Whoever is in power in Washington won’t be able to change that. The more tangible effects of the election in Colorado Springs will be on jobs, and we really don’t know how that shakes out yet. If the ‘fiscal cliff’ is averted, we’ll look for slow but steady improvement in the Colorado Springs unemployment rate. If not, we could be in big trouble here, as we have a lot of military contractors who could end up jobless.