Feelings of heightened division spur renewed talk of secession.

Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway’s phone mailbox was full of messages about the 2018 general election last week after Democrats won seats at the highest levels of the state’s government.

Some of the messages, he said, were from people who asked whether it’s time for Weld County to secede from Colorado.

The issue came up again in a meeting last week with Greeley Centennial Rotary, where an audience member asked Sen. John Cooke, Rgreeley, what he thought about secession.

And in a post the day after the election in the Weld County Republicans Facebook page, a resident said it’s time to secede, breaking away from the influence of Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins.

It wouldn’t be the first time local Republicans considered seceding from the rest of Colorado. This month marks the fifth anniversary of the 51st state initiative, in which 11 counties sought to break away from the rest of Colorado to form a new state.

For Republicans, Colorado’s new Democratic leadership at the top levels of government brings back feelings of division that highlighted the 2013 secession movement. It happened three years before President Donald Trump was elected as the leader of a divided country.

For some, the discussion about forming a new state is followed by a laugh.

After an audience member asked Cooke about the secession movement, the crowd chuckled.

For Stacey Kjeldgaard, the chairwoman of the Weld County GOP, the idea seems silly — at first.

“At first, you roll your eyes and think, ‘This is really ridiculous,’ ” she said. “But there was some serious thought given to it.”

In 2013, Kjeldgaard said, residents in the 11 counties that participated in the movement felt they they didn’t fit into the rest of the state. In 2013, motivations behind the movement included new gun regula- tions, proposed oil and gas legislation and a renewable energy bill for rural electric companies. In 2013, commissioners said the electric company bill showed Denver lawmakers weren’t listening to residents of rural counties.

But five years later, local Republican leaders said they don’t think it’s time to start the movement up again.

Conway, who helped push the initiative to the ballot with Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer, said the secession talks, happening in the background of the party, are the result of raw feelings after the election.

And while he said it’s possible the area sees another 51st state initiative on the ballot again eventually, he’s going to give Colorado’s new leaders a chance.

“There are a lot of raw feelings. I would hope that the new leadership at the state Capitol would learn from the history of 2013,” he said, adding: “From my perspective, I’m not gearing up for a battle. I’m looking forward to finding issues where there’s common ground.”

In an appearance Thursday with Greeley Centennial Rotary, Sen. John Cooke, R-greeley, said he didn’t support the secession movement when it happened, and now that the state is moving toward Democratic leadership at the top levels of the state government, he said Weld County would be better off joining its neighbor to the north.

“I’m thinking we oughta join Wyoming instead of seceding,” he said. “We have a lot more in common with Wyoming than Boulder. Gun control will be a big issue. (Democrats) just can’t help themselves. They’ll ramrod a lot of bad policy through.”

Kirkmeyer did not respond to requests for comment.

Even if the initiative had passed in 2013 — and even if another one is introduced down the road — the reality of a 51st state would take a lot of political maneuvering, at the state and federal levels.

First, both chambers of the legislature would have to approve the secession, said Britton Morrell, a constitutional law professor at the University of Northern Colorado who also practices at the Greeley law firm Kaplan Morrell.

“I don’t see any way in God’s green Earth that the state Legislature would agree to carve off eastern Colorado,” he said. “And then, you’d have a big fight at the national level because the Democrats would naturally not be keen on adding on two U.S. senators that would be reliably Republican.”

That’s because even if the initiative passed the statehouse, it would have to be approved by both chambers of Congress.

The outcome of the 2018 general election was motivated, in large part, by unaffiliated and Democratic voters as a direct response to Trump’s presidency, according to a survey released last week by the political consulting firm Magellan Strategies.

Colorado’s unaffiliated and Democratic voters were, indeed, more motivated to head to the polls than ever before. The elec- tion was the first time Democrats and unaffiliated voters beat Republican voter turnout in a midterm election.

Many of the voters followed a trend of straightticket voting, sending Republicans a clear message about their waning influence on a statewide level.

Back in 2016, though, Republicans sent a clear message of their own — one that highlighted the divide in the county’s politics.

“I told people in 2013 that the 51st initiative is not unique to Colorado,” Conway said. “And so unfortunately, I think that divide exists not only in Colorado, but across the country.”

Kjeldgaard said there’s room for compromise.

“When you walk away from a new election regardless of who won, you hope they are open-minded to compromises,” she said.