The Rockies

Colorado

Barack Obama won this battleground state and Democratic Rep. Mark Udall won the race for Senate, reflecting a new turn for the former Republican bastion. Obama won by 52 percent to 46 percent, while Udall beat former congressman Bob Schaffer by 52 percent to 43 percent for the seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Wayne Allard. The Udall victory gives Colorado two Democratic senators for the first time since the mid-1970s.

Capitalizing on the West's changing demographics, the Obama campaign flooded the state with money and activists. Colorado had voted for a Democratic presidential candidate once in the past three decades, when Bill Clinton took the state in 1992. Democrats started to surge first in recent statewide races, capturing the governorship and control of both houses of the state legislature.

Democrat Betsy Markey unseated three-term Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in the state's 4th District. The state will have five Democrats and two Republicans in the House. The Markey-Musgrave race was heated, with both candidates running daily negative television ads. Musgrave's campaign described her opponent as "Millionaire Markey," while the Markey's campaign told voters that "the only thing we can count on is more lies" from Musgrave.

Colorado voters also rejected by 3 to 1 a ballot initiative that would have defined a person as existing from the moment of conception, making virtually all abortion illegal.

Idaho

John McCain won more than 61 percent of the vote here.

Republican Lt. Gov. Jim Risch defeated Larry LaRocco to fill the seat of the retiring Sen. Larry E. Craig (R), winning more than 55 percent of the vote. Craig did not seek reelection after his arrest in 2007 in a sex sting operation at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

In one of the state's two congressional districts, Democrat Walt Minnick was ahead of Rep. Bill Sali by almost 4,000 votes, with 97 percent of precincts counted in the state's 1st District. Minnick, president of a forest products company and chairman of the board at the College of Idaho, linked Sali to President Bush in his campaign. In one of the most Republican states in the nation -- and a district that has elected one Democrat in the past 41 years -- a Minnick victory would be a significant upset.

Montana

McCain won this state, where the GOP coasted to victory in the past two presidential elections. But Obama made it an unusually close contest, garnering 47 percent of the vote against 50 percent for McCain, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Although George W. Bush won by 20 points here in 2000 and 2004, Obama campaigned in Montana five times while McCain never visited, and he opened 19 campaign offices. In the end, it was not enough to change the political culture of a state that has voted for Democrats only twice in presidential elections since 1948.

Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer won a second term, crushing Roy Brown with 65 percent of the vote. Brown, a state senator from Billings, attacked Schweitzer on taxes, spending and energy policy, but the incumbent's high approval ratings proved insurmountable. Schweitzer became Montana's first Democratic governor in 16 years when he was elected in 2004.

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus also cruised to victory, taking 73 percent of the vote, compared with 27 percent for Bob Kelleher. Incumbent Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg was reelected with 65 percent of the vote.

By a healthy margin, Montana voters approved a measure to expand medical coverage to include up to 30,000 uninsured children.

Utah

McCain won here with 63 percent of the vote. That result, in the solidly Republican state, was never in doubt.

The state's voters also returned Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. to the governor's mansion for a second term with an impressive 78 percent of the vote. The state's two Republican and one Democratic congressmen won their races handily.

Wyoming

McCain carried this state with 65 percent of the vote.

Wyoming's senators, Republicans Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, were reelected in lopsided victories -- both winning more than 70 percent of the vote.

Republican Cynthia Lummis won the state's sole congressional seat, held by seven-term Rep. Barbara Cubin (R), who is retiring. In 1978, Lummis became the youngest woman elected to the state legislature, at age 24. She went on to serve 14 years in the state Senate and House and two terms as state treasurer. She defeated Jackson businessman Gary Trauner, 53 percent to 42 percent. Two years ago, Trauner lost by less than 1 percent to Cubin.