La Plata County has two major active political parties – and both are in the minority.

It’s a reality the La Plata County Democratic Party and the La Plata County Republican Central Committee have faced since 2016, when the number of unaffiliated voters began to surge.

Today, just 24% of the county’s 44,000 active voters are Democrats, and 22% are Republicans. The majority – 52% – are unaffiliated. The remaining 2% belong to minor third parties.

In the wake of a 2024 election cycle that was bruising in different ways for both parties, the county’s party organizations elected new chairs last month.

The county Republicans elected Vanessa Ruggles, an insurance agent from Bayfield who previously served as the party’s second vice chair.

The Democrats elected Teal Lehto, a 27-year-old, fast-talking water rights activist known for her sharp-tongued educational videos on water and public lands.

Both women were elected in uncontested races.

Both recognize their parties may be approaching an inflection point as they navigate a political landscape shaped by their state and national organizations – and by a growing bloc of unaffiliated voters.

2024 brought local victories but national disappointment for Democrats. In La Plata County, Democratic candidates outperformed Republicans in local and regional races. Still, Lehto now leads a small branch of a party many pundits say is divided and struggling. One recent poll found just 7% of Americans believe the Democratic Party has a clear leader.

Lehto said she relates to voters who are disillusioned with the party’s direction and uninspired by many of its candidates.

“I am really tired of Democrats playing nice,” she said, adding: “I don’t think it will be very successful to run milquetoast candidates anymore.”

Ruggles faces, in some ways, the opposite problem.

Although Republicans gained ground nationally – taking White House, Senate and retaining control of the House – local GOP candidates struggled. The state party, led by a far-right faction, caused controversy in La Plata County by inserting itself into local matters, often without input from county leaders. Controversial statewide emails were denounced by more moderate Republicans as offensive and damaging to the conservative cause.

Ruggles said La Plata County Republicans must focus on positive change and move beyond past controversies.

“We can make a difference, we can see change – if we just change the perception of the party and not always be in the middle of controversy,” she said.

Republicans have struggled to recruit qualified candidates for local office in a county where a former party chair once said, “I would be amazed if we have any candidates going forward. It’s like flushing money down the toilet … because they’re going to lose.”

In the most recent election cycle, Republicans did not field a candidate for the District 2 seat on the La Plata County Board of Commissioners. District 2 includes most of Durango. Democratic incumbent Marsha Porter-Norton ran unopposed and was reelected to a second term.

In District 3, rooted in Bayfield, the party announced in March 2023 that it would nominate Ron Bogs, only to learn two weeks later that he did not meet the residency requirement. Paul Black entered the race in April but lost to Democratic incumbent Matt Salka in November by a 12-point margin.

In recent years, Republicans have argued that the county’s at-large voting system – which allows all county voters to cast ballots in every commissioner race regardless of district – is unfair. Black, for example, held a 24-point lead over Salka within District 3, but still lost countywide.

With no movement on changing the at-large voting system at the state level, Ruggles said the party should instead focus on recruiting moderate candidates who can appeal to unaffiliated voters and those in Durango.

La Plata County is “pretty blue,” Ruggles acknowledged, “but with the right candidates, we could change that.”

Clark Craig, the Ignacio mayor who narrowly lost the House District 59 race to Rep. Katie Stewart, demonstrated the kind of candidate Republicans should support, Ruggles said. Craig sits on the county planning commission and the Economic Development Alliance board and is well-known in the community through multiple roles.

Sen. Cleave Simpson, the Republican incumbent who defeated Democrat Vivian Smotherman by a wide margin in the competitive Senate District 6, was “the perfect candidate,” the chair said.

“If you’re going to win elections, they (the candidates) have to appeal to the masses,” Ruggles said. “And there’s more unaffiliated voters because of all the ‘left-side, right-side whatever,’ and we have to appeal to them.”

Democrats in La Plata County have faced fewer candidate recruitment challenges. (Though, Commissioner Clyde Church was criticized six years ago for working remotely during a monthlong vacation in Mexico shortly after taking office. Church said he had not expected to win when the trip was booked.)

Church is term-limited and cannot run again in 2026. Lehto says two people have already expressed interest in the seat, which she called the party’s “bread and butter.”

In an era when many Democratic priorities are under attack from Republicans in power, Lehto said individual issues are what motivate her base. And although Democrats have won every contested countywide race since 2016, the party isn’t resting on its laurels.

“I operate on the assumption that we are the underdog at all times,” she said.

All politics are local, the adage goes, and the November election results showed how willing some voters were to set aside party allegiance in favor of personal connections.

The same holds true for local parties, Ruggles and Lehto said, as both expressed concerns with their state and national party leadership.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had a far smaller edge over President Donald Trump among young voters than in the past, polls showed. Lehto emerged as a voice for change, committed to holding local elected officials accountable to the standards a new generation of Democrats want to see.

Part of her strategy is focused on communication.

“We’re operating in an attention economy, and it’s really important to be able to break through to voters,” she said.

To that end, in a video explaining how Rep. Lauren Boebert’s rise inspired Lehto to enter politics, Lehto called the former 3rd Congressional District representative “ridiculous, insane and stupid,” noting that Boebert obtained her GED while campaigning. The remark, Lehto said, wasn’t meant to insult people with less formal education, but to highlight what she saw as a lack of qualifications. She stands by it.

“Lauren Boebert is stupid,” she said again, arguing that Democrats need to “start calling it like it is.”

While Lehto looks to capture attention, Ruggles said the GOP should aim to attract less – or at least different – attention.

“It just comes down to perception,” she said.

Local GOP leaders, Ruggles said, were unaware the state Republican Party planned to threaten a lawsuit against Durango School District 9-R over the display of certain flags in classrooms. She said she was not pleased to learn of the move after it had already been made public, adding that the local party doesn’t always align with the state organization.

To shift the narrative, Ruggles said the GOP needs to show up in positive ways – maybe marching in parades, serving breakfast at VFW Post 4031 and adopting a highway.

The current political climate has not been particularly conducive to constructive dialogue, Ruggles said, and she expressed little patience for continued division.

“Let’s open dialogue and discuss,” she said.

rschafir@durangoherald.com