Is Douglas County, Colorado Republican or Democrat? Red or Blue in 2026, Race by Race

This is an opinion piece with sourced numbers. Where we predict, we say so, and we say what would prove us wrong.

Douglas County has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson, and for most of the last sixty years that fact was the whole story of its politics. It is not the whole story anymore, and November 3 is the first election in which the county could break the pattern in more than one race on the same night. Here are the five places to watch, in order of how likely we think it is, with the case for and against each.

1. Governor: the likeliest flip, because of the third name

The Republican cushion here is 1,290 votes, and this year's nominee, Victor Marx, won his primary with 39.9 percent and has not been endorsed by either rival. Beside him on the ballot is Greg Lopez, the former Parker mayor, running unaffiliated, who won this county's congressional vote by 11.8 points in a 2024 special election. We laid out the arithmetic in a separate piece: if Lopez draws even three percent here and most of it comes from the Republican column, Phil Weiser carries Douglas County.

Against: unaffiliated candidates fade in October, no poll exists, and Weiser ran to Michael Bennet's left in a county whose swing voters are not progressives. Our call: more likely than not that Weiser finishes first here. For scale: in 2010 Tom Tancredo, running on the American Constitution Party line, carried the county with 47.96 percent to John Hickenlooper's 40.11, with Republican nominee Dan Maes collapsing to 11.05.

2. Congress: the county, not the seat

Lauren Boebert won Douglas County by 0.57 points in 2024, running six points behind Trump, against a Democrat with a fraction of the money Eileen Laubacher has now. Laubacher is a retired two-star admiral from Highlands Ranch, a Republican who went unaffiliated in 2024 and registered as a Democrat in 2025, who had raised $10.35 million through June to Boebert's $1.01 million, with $3.61 million in the bank to her $247,000. A midterm under a Republican president historically costs that party a few points. The race is Likely Republican district-wide because the plains counties do not swing; the county is a coin flip Boebert starts half a point ahead in.

Against: midterm turnout skews older and more Republican; the county's Boebert-skeptics may already have voted against her in 2024, leaving nothing left to lose. Our call: a genuine toss-up at the county level, with Laubacher a slight favorite to carry Douglas County. Boebert is favored to keep the seat, but not safely: Adam Frisch came within 546 votes of her in 2022 with less money than Laubacher has now, and with a September ethics complaint (denied, unconfirmed) and a national environment in which Democrats are contesting seats Trump won by 15, we put the seat itself at about one chance in three of flipping.

3. County commissioner: the number the party is not talking about

In the June primary, Irene Bonham, the Democrat, running unopposed, received 41,828 votes in the final official count. Jake Bockenfeld won the Republican nomination with 27,315; the two Republicans combined drew 48,911. A Democrat with nothing to vote on pulled 85.5 percent of the combined Republican total and outpolled the nominee by more than 14,000 votes. Every caveat applies (different electorates, unaffiliated voters choosing one ballot), and the two primaries drew almost identical numbers of ballots countywide: 52,334 Democratic to 52,154 Republican. But no Douglas County commissioner race in memory has produced a number like it, and the race page explains why the county's GOP committee is calling her "socialist-backed" over a single endorsement: because the alternative is arguing about her platform, which reads like a moderate Republican's.

Against: commissioner races run below the top of the ticket and follow registration more closely; the Republican nominee is a credible candidate with a family name; and countywide voting still favors a Republican in a county that is 31 percent Republican and 16.6 percent Democratic. Our call: Bockenfeld favored, Bonham with a real path, and the most important down-ballot result of the night either way. If Question 200 (expanding the board) also passes, the current three-member board's authority takes a double hit.

4. House District 43: the seat that already flipped

Highlands Ranch elected Bob Marshall, a Democrat and retired Marine lieutenant colonel, by about 400 votes in 2022 and 1,373 in 2024. He is defending it against Nate Marsh, a senior deputy district attorney in George Brauchler's office. The race is the tightest legislative seat in the county.

Against the blue reading: this is a hold, not a flip, and a midterm electorate is the worst one for Marshall to defend in. Our call: a coin flip. If Marshall wins a third time, Highlands Ranch has stopped being a Republican town in any meaningful sense; if Marsh takes it back, the county's blue drift stalls at the county line.

5. The row offices: where a real shift would show first

Treasurer, clerk and assessor are the purest test of a county's partisan lean, because almost nobody knows the candidates and the vote follows the letter after the name. Tim Dietz (R) versus Dan Smith (D) for treasurer, Sheri Davis (R) versus Jim Oehler (D) for clerk, Toby Damisch (R) versus Kara Garr (D) for assessor. Republicans have held all of these as a matter of course. If any one of them is within five points on election night, the county has changed more than any single top-of-ticket result would show. If a Democrat wins one, that is the headline, and it will not be because of Lopez or Boebert or anyone's personality.

Our call: all three stay Republican, and the treasurer's race is the one to watch for a margin under ten.

What "blue" would mean, and what it would not

Suppose the likeliest version happens: Weiser carries the county for governor, Laubacher carries it for Congress, Marshall holds Highlands Ranch, Bockenfeld wins the commission seat, and the row offices stay red. Is Douglas County blue?

No. It is a county where an unaffiliated majority declined two specific Republicans and kept the rest. The same electorate will, on the same night, almost certainly pass Amendment 81 (immigration reporting) by a wide margin here, vote down Amendment 87 (the graduated income tax), and re-elect an unopposed Republican sheriff whose office is suing the state. That is not a Democratic county. It is a county that has stopped voting the label and started voting the name, which is a different and less predictable thing, and which makes candidate quality the whole game in both directions.

The version where it does become the headline is the one where the row offices move. Watch the treasurer's margin. If Dan Smith is within single digits of Tim Dietz, the story of November 3 in Douglas County is not Lopez or Boebert. It is that the wall came down at the bottom of the ballot while everyone was watching the top.

What would prove us wrong

Marx holding the county with Lopez under two percent. Boebert winning the county by more than 2024's half point. Bonham finishing more than ten points back. Marsh retaking HD-43 by a comfortable margin. Any two of those, and this piece overstated the drift; all four, and the June primary numbers were noise. We will grade ourselves on November 4.

More: our July look at the same question, before the candidates were set, and every race and measure on your ballot.