McCain, Obama fight for the West - Yahoo! News

RENO, Nev. - Call it the political version of how to win the West.
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Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are tripping over each other this week in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, a prelude to a likely general election matchup and inevitable fight for three booming battleground states. President Bush narrowly won the three states four years ago and Democrats now see them as ripe for opportunity.

"I'm a Western senator," McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting from Arizona, said in this gambling mecca Wednesday, signaling he intends to fiercely defend the turf. "I understand our issues."

Obama, who has nearly secured the Democratic nomination, sounds just as determined.

"We can win the West," the Illinois senator said Monday at a museum in Las Cruces, N.M., as he stood alongside the state's Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a prominent Hispanic. "We're going to fight as hard as we can in these states."

Once a Republican stronghold, the historically conservative West has changed demographically over the past decade and, thus, politically.

Retirees from all over, including the liberal Northeast and West Coast, flocked to the region because of its available and cheap land, its dry, warm climate, its range of recreational activities and its magnificent mountains and sprawling deserts. Businesses sprouted in the region's few dense population centers, and job opportunities followed. So did swarms of swing-voting Hispanic immigrants.

That growth exploded since the last presidential election. Census figures show that Nevada grew 10.1 percent, Colorado 5.5 percent and New Mexico 4.1 percent between July 2004 and July 2007.

Thus, the region has become far more competitive and margins of victory have tightened as Democrats made inroads into decades-old GOP dominance.

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