Out West, a change in the scenery

For decades, the Udall family stood out in the often-conservative world of Western politics.

Brothers Mo and Stewart -- Morris K. Udall was a congressman from Arizona who sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and Stewart L. Udall was a celebrated secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson -- fought for the environment and worker rights. By the time they left politics in the 1980s, the interior West, the mountainous states east of California, had become a Republican stronghold.

On Tuesday, however, Mo’s and Stewart’s sons won U.S. Senate seats in Colorado and New Mexico, while the Democratic presidential candidate scored decisive wins in three of the most populous states in the region.

“It’s back to our future; it’s a return to our roots in the West,” Rep. Mark Udall, Mo’s son, said in an interview last week after he won the Senate seat in Colorado held by a Republican.

Democrats for decades have dreamed of transforming the Rocky Mountain West into a place where the Udalls’ politics could upend the GOP’s electoral dominance.

On Tuesday, the party picked up the two Udall seats in the Senate and six House seats in the region, nearly a third of their gains nationwide. Democratic governors represent the states running from Montana to Arizona. New Mexico’s congressional delegation, for the first time in decades, will be entirely Democratic.

And Barack Obama -- whose presidential campaign poured resources into the region -- won Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico by convincing margins. The first two states had backed George W. Bush in both of his campaigns; New Mexico went for Bush by a slim margin in 2004 after Al Gore narrowly won the state in 2000.

“Every two years you’re seeing more and more Democratic gains in the West,” said Jill Hanauer, president of Project New West, which advises Democrats on how to expand in the region. “This could be for Democrats what the South was in the 1960s.”

There are several factors at play: An influx of people from the more liberal coasts has helped the party, as has a surge in Latino immigrants, who increasingly are voting Democratic.

Obama carried two-thirds of the Latino vote nationwide, according to election exit polls. In the Mountain West, where Republicans have pushed policies to crack down on illegal immigration, the margins were higher. In Nevada, 76% of Latinos backed Obama.

“It was Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs,” said Polly Baca, a former Democratic National Committee official who helped the Obama campaign go after the Latino vote in Colorado, citing the state’s outgoing conservative GOP congressman and the CNN anchor who have assailed illegal immigration.

Immigrants “went off, got their citizenship, and they voted in record numbers,” Baca said.

Democrats also have been successful by nominating centrist candidates who appeal to Westerners’ nonpartisan, can-do leanings.

Officials such as Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who cruised to reelection Tuesday, and Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado are strong opponents of gun control.

“Western voters, we all know, reject extreme political ideologues and ideologies and choose leaders with common-sense solutions for the unique challenges of the American West,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a conference call Wednesday to discuss the party’s Western gains. (In a sign of the Democrats’ confidence, the call was scheduled two days before election day.)

Reps. Mark and Tom Udall were elected to represent liberal congressional districts in Colorado and New Mexico, respectively, in 1998. They favor work shirts and talk with a Western drawl. Both hail from the progressive wing of the party, but in interviews they describe their style as a nonpartisan, problem-solving one.

Mark Udall, 58, who before running for Congress ran Colorado’s Outward Bound, an outdoor education program, said the approach dated to pioneer days. “If you didn’t work together on your irrigation system, come the spring runoff, you weren’t going to survive,” he said.

Tom Udall, 60, who was attorney general in New Mexico before winning his congressional seat, said the Republicans had lost touch with basic Western values during their long period of dominance in the region.

“The Republicans overplayed their hand, getting extreme on some of the issues while people wanted practical solutions to problems,” he said.

The Udalls’ Senate races followed similar paths and were reminiscent of aspects of Obama’s contest against Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Republicans tried to paint the Udalls as extreme liberals who were out of the Western mainstream.

In Colorado, the GOP candidate and former congressman Bob Schaffer relentlessly called Mark Udall a “Boulder liberal” -- a reference to the college town near Udall’s home.

In New Mexico, Rep. Steve Pearce ran a full-page newspaper ad with a photo of hippies to criticize Tom Udall’s environmental policies.

Tom Udall ended up winning 61% of the vote. Pearce “tried to paint Udall as too far to the left, but ironically it was Mr. Pearce who ended up out of the mainstream,” said Joe Monahan, who runs a well-read blog on New Mexico politics.

In Colorado, Schaffer was close to Mark Udall in the polls this summer but ended up falling behind when the national economy cratered. Udall won, 53% to 43%.

“I think that style of campaigning has worn out its welcome here,” Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli said of Schaffer’s attacks.

He added that the race was a perfect illustration of why Democrats were winning over moderate voters and dominating the Rocky Mountain West.

The GOP “is passing over what is essentially half of this electorate who are pragmatists,” Ciruli said. “Democrats are out there, wearing cowboy hats and talking to them. . . . The difference between Mark and Schaffer is pretty stark. One of them seems like a comfortable outdoors guy and the other looks like a policy wonk.”

Dick Wadhams, who ran Schaffer’s campaign and is chairman of Colorado’s Republican Party, said it was the year’s unusual election dynamics -- an extraordinarily unpopular GOP president, an economic collapse and excitement about electing the nation’s first African American president -- that caused Schaffer and Republican candidates across the region to lose.

“I don’t think that Colorado would have elected a Boulder liberal in any cycle other than the 2008 cycle,” Wadhams said.

Without President Bush to criticize and with the economy expected to worsen, Western Republicans predict that Democrats will lose ground in 2010. And many analysts caution that the Mountain West traditionally has swung back and forth between the two parties.

“I’ve been struck by how predictably unpredictable Western political history has been,” said Patricia Nelson Limerick, a history professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, the Udall family was the most prominent among a number of Western liberals. It was the Reagan revolution and the increasing restrictions put on the use of federal land that turned the region solidly Republican, said Daniel Kemmis of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

There could easily be another shift, Kemmis said.

“The choices the Obama team makes will determine how Democrats do the next cycle.”

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nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com