According to the Pollster.com trend estimate, Barack Obama now holds a 42.5 percent to 40.4 percent lead over John McCain in Colorado. Real Clear Politics sees a larger 47.3 percent to 42.0 percent lead for Obama. FiveThirtyEight.com's regression analysis pegs Obama's lead as about the same as the one found by RCP, and gives Obama a 65 percent shot at winning the state.

Yet as exciting as all of those numbers are -- and they do look good, don't get me wrong -- it is this set of numbers that is the really good omen for both Obama and the Democratic Party:

Since the 2006 election, Republicans have lost about 42,000 voters, and Democrats have picked up about 32,000, registration records show.

That's a significant amount of movement since 2006 -- a year, I might add, that was great for Colorado Democrats. Remember, that fall saw what was supposed to have been one of the nation's closest gubernatorial contests end up a rout in favor of the Democrats, with Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter overwhelming Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez 56 percent to 41 percent. That November's election also saw what was supposed to have been a close race in the evenly-drawn seventh congressional district end up a big 55 percent to 42 percent win for Democrat Ed Perlmutter.

And yet despite the fact that 2006 was a banner year for the Democrats, their numbers have continued to grow in the state since then, both in nominal terms and (particularly) relative to the GOP. Throw in the fact that Obama will address tens of thousands of voters in his acceptance speech at Mile High -- voters whose contact information he will get when they register for tickets to the address -- and the likelihood that the speech will bring positive coverage in the state, and all of the sudden things look really great in Colorado.

This, of course, does not mean that anything can be taken for granted. That said, the likelihood is looking greater and greater that Obama will be able to build on the 47 percent John Kerry earned in Colorado in 2004 and really make a play for the state's nine electoral votes come November.