By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

If Barack Obama wins the hotly contested fight for Colorado’s nine electoral votes this November, it will be largely because of the strength of his own candidacy and the momentum his Democratic Party has built in the state during this decade. That the party is holding its national convention in Denver, of course, shouldn’t hurt.

This marks only the second time Colorado’s capital has hosted the nominating convention of a major political party. In July 1908, the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for his third and final unsuccessful run, and Bryan was trounced in the fall by William Howard Taft. The party has little interest in dwelling on that history now. Instead, it’s describing the convention location as a powerful signal that Democrats will fight tooth and nail to carry Colorado this fall and, beyond that, are working to make the Mountain West an increasingly competitive region in presidential politics.

The state has historic Republican leanings, but they are balanced by the independent sentiments of many voters. Registration rolls show that Colorado is essentially one-third Democratic, one-third Republican and one-third independent — with the ranks of the unaffiliated growing into a small but clear plurality this year. Both Obama and John McCain will be courting those independents especially assiduously in a state that gave above-average shares to the last two candidates from outside the two-party system who were influential in a White House race. Ross Perot took 23 percent in 1992, when Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to carry the state. Ralph Nader took a better-than-his-average 5 percent in the state in 2000, compared with under 3 percent nationally.

“In the end, it comes down to whether or not McCain or Obama can captivate Colorado’s palate through relative fiscal conservatism, social moderation, with just a splash of populism and energy and environmentalism talk for flavor,” said Kyle Saunders, a political scientist at Colorado State University, in assessing the winning presidential formula in the state at the moment.

George W. Bush bested Al Gore by more than 8 percentage points in Colorado in 2000. And four years ago, John Kerry narrowed the president’s margin to 5 points. Being born in Denver was seen as much less of a factor in Kerry’s showing than the state’s changing political landscape. Democrat Ken Salazar picked up what had been a Republican Senate seat that year, and two years later Democrat Bill Ritter Jr. ended an eight-year GOP hold on the governorship.

This year the Democrats are well positioned to win their third consecutive statewide contest, for the state’s other Senate seat. Wayne Allard is one of five senators (all Republicans) retiring at the end of this year, and the party has vested one of its top-tier pickup opportunities in Mark Udall , who has represented the area in and around leftward-leaning Boulder in the House for a decade. (He is a son of the late Morris K. Udall, the legendarily witty and energetic liberal congressman from Arizona who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976.)

Udall presents a clear ideological alternative to conservative Republican Bob Schaffer, who retired from the House after six years in 2002, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2004 and now sits on the state board of education. Udall has built a big fundraising lead, and Schaffer may have to rely on the state’s close partisan split to keep the race tight — especially after uncomplimentary news reports about his business dealings and a trip he took as a House member that was arranged in part by the firm of later-convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff.

The Democrats took a 4-3 edge in the House delegation following the 2006 election, as Ed Perlmutter picked up a seat in suburban Denver that he’s sure to hold for a second term. In this year’s only competitive House race, Democrats are waging an aggressive campaign to unseat Republican Marilyn Musgrave , first elected in 2002 to represent Fort Collins, some suburbs of Denver and the eastern plains. Though this area of Colorado is generally conservative and usually reliable for Republicans, Musgrave is coming off a 2006 win with a 46 percent plurality that was the poorest showing of any winning House candidate. Democrats have high hopes in Betsy Markey, a former Salazar aide.

Two of the seven current House members are giving up their seats: Udall, to run for the Senate, and Republican Tom Tancredo , the conservative crusader against illegal immigration, who has represented suburban Denver for a decade and decided to retire before his quixotic presidential bid sputtered out. The demographics of both districts make partisan turnover almost impossible, and so the Aug. 12 primary yielded two people who can essentially pack their bags for Washington: Democratic businessman Jared Polis, who is running as Udall’s successor, and Republican Mike Coffman, the current secretary of state, who is seeking to be Tancredo’s.

Certain to be back next year is the host congresswoman of the convention, Democrat Diana DeGette of Denver, seeking her seventh term, and freshman Doug Lamborn from the central part of the state, who survived a tough primary over his two closest rivals from 2006.