LYNN NEARY, HOST:
And now to NPR's Jeff Brady. Jeff, you're joining us from another swing state, Colorado. Where exactly are you and what are you hearing from people there?
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: I'm in Aurora, Colorado and it is beautiful outside. It's 70 degrees, about 70 degrees, beautiful blue sky, a little bit of a breeze, but perfect weather for voting. We're in Arapaho County, which is one of the swing counties that we're going to be watching closely as the election returns come in tonight. Apparently, the lines here were pretty long this morning. Some people were talking about two or three hours.
We haven't seen that. We did talk to a few people that had to wait for about an hour and from those coming out after voting, I've heard two messages really. For those who picked Barack Obama, they talk about his support for abortion rights was important and then most said that he just needs more time, that he inherited a bad economy and needs more time to improve it.
And among those supporting Mitt Romney, we heard over and over that this election is all about the economy and reducing the size of government and the federal deficit.
NEARY: And for a state that only has nine electoral votes, Colorado's been getting a lot of attention. Why is that?
BRADY: Well, you know, Colorado's been reliably Republican for a long time, but it's trending Democratic in the past few elections. Barack Obama won in 2008 fairly easily here. It looks like it's going to be a closer race this time, though, and the key is the nearly one-third of voters who don't belong to a political party. Nobody can win here without them and talking with unaffiliated voters today, they're pretty split and so it could be a nail-biter tonight.
NEARY: All right, thanks so much, Jeff.
BRADY: Thank you, Lynn.
NEARY: NPR's Jeff Brady, joining us from Aurora, Colorado. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.