Tuesday’s election offered a wide range of results to digest, both in Colorado and nationally — at times going in different directions.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the state’s most prominent Republican on the national scene, won a third term after a risky bet paid off. Colorado Democrats, meanwhile, remained in firm control of the state legislature, while voters answered ballot questions with answers that weren’t necessarily predictable.
Vote counting was still underway Wednesday. As of late morning, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office reported that nearly 3.2 million ballots had been returned statewide. That number likely will rise, but so far it reflects a turnout rate of 69% among all registered voters. The state’s 2020 election turnout rate was 78%.
As the fallout from the election takes shape — including the change looming for the White House with former President Donald Trump’s return — here are early takeaways.
Ballot measures offer an ideologically mixed bag
For those keeping score at home: Colorado voters approved a sweeping constitutional amendment protecting abortion access, narrowly OK’d a new tax on gun and ammo sales, and approved a measure to remove anti-same sex marriage language from the state constitution — all red-meat Democratic issues.
Simultaneously, they passed conservative-backed ballot measures to tighten criminal penalties and increase funding for law enforcement (which will pose serious issues for state budget-writers in the coming months). But they rejected a core conservative measure to enshrine school choice in the state constitution.
Finally, voters also soundly rejected Proposition 131, a vaguely centrist pitch to overhaul the state’s election systems, including by instituting a form of ranked-choice voting.
Make of that what you want, but — given that Democrats looked likely to hold near the status quo in the statehouse — there’s no evidence that Colorado voters shifted right. The state as a whole is reliably blue.
But Tuesday’s ballot results perhaps suggested that the exact shade of blue was still being ironed out.
Boebert’s move appears to pay off
After she nearly lost a shocker in 2022 and then had a scandalous day at a Denver theater last year, Boebert skipped over the Front Range and, on Tuesday night, won a return to the U.S. House for a third term in a new district. Simultaneously, her Western Slope primary challenger-cum-replacement — Republican lawyer Jeff Hurd — defeated Democrat Adam Frisch narrowly.
Republicans successfully defended what looked like a toss-up on the Western Slope, while Boebert got to keep a different congressional seat — despite huge Democratic money and the bad headlines working against her.
Hurd still ran behind what would be the expected baseline for the solidly conservative 3rd Congressional District. And Boebert likewise underperformed in the 4th. But if the GOP keeps its House majority, Speaker Mike Johnson won’t care.
Of course, the situation will look even rosier for Republicans if state Rep. Gabe Evans manages to close the gap on Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo and flip the 8th Congressional District. Caraveo was still leading by a narrow margin Wednesday afternoon, and she won a squeaker two years ago.
But if — if — Evans turns it around, then Colorado Republicans will end this cycle with a 4-4 congressional split in a state that’s otherwise turned pretty blue.
Verdict on Denver tax increases still out
Faced with two large sales tax increases on their ballot, Denver voters were more willing to support the city’s safety-net hospital. The second tax measure, an increase that would raise $100 million a year for affordable housing investment and programs, was losing even in updated results Wednesday evening — though its supporters weren’t ready to concede yet.
As of late Tuesday, the Denver Health tax was winning over nearly 57% of voters. The Affordable Denver tax proposal had been rejected by 51.6% of voters so far.
But something to watch: That rejection percentage has ticked down slightly with each update of results, giving hope to Mayor Mike Johnston and other backers that as tens of thousands of outstanding ballots are processed, support might eventually overtake opposition.
Elsewhere on metro Denver ballots, voters were on track, by varying margins, to approve billions of dollars in bond proposals by school districts — including in the Denver, Aurora and Cherry Creek school districts.
Democrats’ Capitol control strong
Democrats’ control of the Colorado Capitol wasn’t seriously in doubt heading into Tuesday, but they missed out on complete supermajority control of the building, which would have required attaining that two-thirds threshold in the Senate. Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson successfully defended his seat, and Republican Rep. Marc Catlin led in the race for an open Senate seat that Democrats had also targeted.
In the House, a few tight races were settling with close margins, but Democrats looked assured of holding their supermajority — a threshold that legislative leadership had downplayed the importance of in recent days. House Speaker Julie McCluskie declared victory, while Minority Leader Rose Pugliese on Tuesday night said she was “optimistic that we have an opportunity to gain back seats in the House.”
Two years ago, some Democrats had stared with wide-eyed surprise at the 46-seat House majority they won in that cycle. But this election showed that this level of Democratic dominance here is the standard, at least for now.
That may be further cemented by the coming second Trump presidency — after the first one helped kickstart Colorado’s blueward tilt.
Colorado’s place in a new Trump era?
Sitting with reporters at Rep. Gabe Evans’ congressional watch party in Brighton, former Republican state Rep. Colin Larson shook his head Tuesday night.
“It’s 2016 all over again,” Larson said.
The presidential race still hadn’t been called then, but initial results were looking favorable to Trump. In downtown Denver, Democrats celebrated wins in the state — including Vice President Kamala Harris earning Colorado’s electoral votes by a wide margin — while urging caution in the presidential race.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, noted that when the nation went to bed four years ago, it wasn’t clear that Joe Biden would win the presidency. He acknowledged that Democrats were poised to lose control of the U.S. Senate, but he kept hope about winning back the House. It would mean a renewed need for bipartisanship, he said, even in a hyper-partisan era.
It was otherwise too early to interpret the results.
“We have always had moments in American history where the parties have been at each other’s throats — where there doesn’t seem a way for people to work together — and then periods of cooperation break out,” Bennet said in an interview. “I think the American people want to see us finding ways to work together where we can. But I think they also care a lot about preserving our democratic institutions, and they are going to want to make sure we do that.”
As for whether Colorado is out of step with the rest of the nation?
“I wouldn’t say we’re out of step,” Bennet said. “I think we’re a place that a lot of places around the country can take some inspiration from. And depending how tonight goes, they may need it.”
Staff writer Joe Rubino and public affairs editor Jon Murray contributed to this story.
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