In July, Barack Obama made an
appearance in Colorado Springs, part of a strategy of competing in Republican strongholds and for evangelical Christian voters.
Running mate Joe Biden was there less than two weeks before the election.
The strategy apparently worked in El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is based. The unofficial vote total for Obama is 104,670, about 27,000 more votes than John Kerry won there in 2004. (That's more than the 22,571 increase in total votes in the county, comparing 2008 to 2004.) Obama increased his share of El Paso County’s vote to 40 percent, compared to Kerry’s 32 percent.
Meanwhile, the unofficial vote total for John McCain on Tuesday in El Paso County is 155,914, or 59 percent. President Bush's final vote total in 2004 was 161,361, or 67 percent.