John Hollrah remembers walking into a Ouray County bank and stunning the person behind the counter when he asked to open an account for the county Democratic Party.

“I didn’t think there were any Democrats in Ouray County,” the employee admitted to him.

That was nearly 30 years ago. Today, Democrats, along with a group of unaffiliated candidates who ran unopposed for several county seats, hold a dominant position in the county when it comes to voters’ preferences up and down the ballot. Th...