In Colorado alone, Democrats have won control of the Legislature and the governor's mansion and picked up a Senate seat and two House seats in the last two elections.
Obama also is poised to emerge from a competitive Democratic primary campaign against Clinton that brought out tens of thousands of new voters.
In Nevada -- where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the powerful Culinary Union have been building an increasingly powerful Democratic political machine -- the party now enjoys a nearly 52,000-voter registration advantage over Republicans.
Four years ago at this time, there were nearly 12,000 more active registered Republicans than Democrats in Nevada, according to the secretary of state's office.
"That's something that Republicans should be very concerned about," said Chuck Muth, a conservative Nevada commentator who heads a grass-roots organizing business.
McCain also doesn't enjoy the same relationship with rural conservatives that Bush was able to count on.
And his positions favoring nuclear waste storage in Yucca Mountain and opposing some sports betting put him on the wrong side of two issues that are important to many Nevadans.
"You could run a pretty decent campaign against the guy," said political columnist Jon Ralston.
Republicans nonetheless enter the battle for the West with distinct advantages.
As a native son and war hero who has a record of pushing immigration overhaul, McCain has an entree with Latino voters, who many strategists believe will be critical again this election.
On Monday, his campaign released a Web ad targeting Latino veterans. And McCain will continue to focus on those voters in the months ahead, his strategist Charles Black said.
Obama, in contrast, has struggled to win support among Latinos throughout the primary season.
Speaking to reporters Monday in Las Cruces, he acknowledged the challenge. "We're going to have to work hard to get known by the voters in this region," he said. "But I think the message of changing Washington, delivering on universal healthcare, having an energy policy that is actually coherent, I think that is all critically important to the people here."
At a time when Democrats are winning elections in the West wearing cowboy boots and distancing themselves from the Eastern party establishment, however, Obama enters the general election campaign with a distinctly non-Western profile.
