Colorado

Democrat John Hickenlooper won the Senate race by 25.5 points over Republican Mark Baisley. Phil Weiser, the Democratic attorney general, won the open governor’s race by 27.9 over Republican Victor Marx, after defeating U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the June primary.¹ Democrats also won the three other statewide offices on the ballot. The U.S. House delegation had been split, four seats to four. Democrats took two Republican seats: Manny Rutinel beat Republican Gabe Evans in the Eighth District by 14.7 points, and Jessica Killin beat Republican Jeff Crank in the Fifth by 4.7, in a district Donald Trump carried by 9.0. In the Fourth, which is not called, Democrat Eileen Laubacher leads Republican Lauren Boebert. In the First, Melat Kiros won the seat after defeating its 29-year Democratic incumbent in the primary.¹

Kamala Harris carried Colorado by 11.0 points in 2024. Hickenlooper’s margin was 14.5 points wider, D+25.5, and the U.S. House vote, all districts added together, went from D+11.8 to D+23.9. Hickenlooper drew 94 votes for every 100 Harris won here; Baisley drew 68 for every 100 of Trump’s. The Senate race drew 84% as many votes as the 2024 presidential election and 107% of the 2022 midterm’s.

The Denver metro area, which casts 51% of the vote, went from D+21.4 to D+36.4. The Greeley area moved furthest, 18.1 points, from R+21.0 to R+2.9, and the Boulder area, already the most Democratic, moved least, 9.0. Two Republican parts of the state changed sides: the Colorado Springs area, from R+10.9 to D+2.5, and the small towns and rural counties, from R+9.3 to D+4.0.

El Paso County, in the Colorado Springs area, is the largest of the seven counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Hickenlooper this year. It went from R+9.8 to D+3.8 on 313,166 votes. The widest swing came in Adams County, in the Denver area: 22.9 points, from D+9.0 to D+31.9. Weld County moved 18.1 and stayed Republican by 2.9. Jefferson County went from D+19.5 to D+32.4 and Denver County from D+56.2 to D+70.4. No county moved toward the Republicans.

Democrats have held the governorship and both chambers since 2019, and kept all three. The change is in the size of their majorities. Ballotpedia puts the margin needed to override a veto without minority votes at two-thirds of each chamber, 24 of 35 Senate seats and 44 of 65 House seats; Democrats went from one short in each chamber to supermajorities in both, which lawmakers say is a first for the state.^{2, 3} In our count they hold 24 Senate seats, exactly the line, and 49 House seats, up from 43. The Colorado Sun reported that the same margins let them put constitutional amendments on the ballot without Republican votes.³

Weiser will face a legislature of his own party that can override his vetoes, which the Colorado Sun reported could weaken his influence over the General Assembly. Asked about it on November 4, he said: “I believe that we can build a culture that brings everybody in and gets the best ideas.” Senate Democrats chose Sen. Dylan Roberts of Frisco as majority leader, and he pledged to repair a rift between progressives and moderates in the caucus.³ House Democrats chose Rep. Jennifer Bacon as speaker-designate; she will be the first Black woman to serve as speaker of the Colorado House, the caucus said.⁴

The election left the maps and the voting where they were. Two independent commissions, established by Amendments Y and Z in 2018, draw the congressional and legislative districts, and the Colorado Supreme Court reviews the final plans.⁵ Voters rejected Amendment 86, which would have required the congressional commission and the court to approve any change to congressional districts outside a scheduled redistricting year.^{6, 7} The secretary of state’s office was also open this year; Democrat Amanda Gonzalez won it, keeping it in Democratic hands.¹

Colorado had 14 statewide measures, and voters approved seven. A statute needs a majority of the votes cast on it; a constitutional amendment put on the ballot by petition needs 55%, unless it only repeals part of the constitution.^{7, 8, 9} Amendment 87, which replaces the flat income tax with graduated rates that raise taxes on incomes above about $500,000 a year, needed only a majority because it repeals constitutional language, and passed with 51.7% in our count. A rival measure to cap the income tax rate, Proposition 136, failed with 47.2%.^{7, 10} Proposition NN, which lets the state keep money that would otherwise be refunded under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and spend it on schools and early childhood programs, passed with 57.0%.¹¹

Six proposed amendments failed, four of them led or backed by the conservative nonprofit Advance Colorado. Amendment 85, requiring plain-language ballot questions, won a majority, 51.1%, but not the 55% it needed; Amendment 84, which would have required ID numbers on mail ballots, drew the least support, 36.6%. Four conservative-backed statutes passed: Proposition 132 on fentanyl penalties, 133 on life sentences for child trafficking, 134 on sex-based school sports teams and 135 banning some gender-affirming surgeries for minors. Proposition 133 drew the most support of any measure, 62.1%. Because they are statutes, the legislature can change them. Proposition 137, sending outdoor gear tax money to conservation, also passed.^{7, 12}

Two Democratic incumbents won seats on the partisan State Board of Education, so Democrats keep their majority on the nine-member board, Chalkbeat Colorado reported.¹³ Voters in the 13-county Front Range Passenger Rail District passed Ballot Issue 7A, a tax to build and run passenger rail service, 55.15% to 44.85%, according to a law firm’s tally.¹ One Colorado Supreme Court justice, William W. Hood, stood for retention, and Ballotpedia lists him as retained.¹⁴

Republicans held on to one seat of their own. Rep. Jeff Hurd kept the Third District by 1.8 points, in a district Trump carried by 9.7, and the Colorado Sun reported that he may be the state’s only Republican in Congress.³ Baisley carried 34 of the state’s 64 counties. Four statutory measures backed by conservatives passed, on fentanyl, child trafficking, school sports and surgeries for minors.^{7, 12}

Michael F. Bennet’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028; the state voted Democratic by 11.0 points for president in 2024 and by 25.5 in this year’s Senate race. Colorado’s governor serves four years and may serve no more than two consecutive terms, so the office is next on the ballot in 2030.¹⁵

In the Fourth District, Eileen Laubacher leads Lauren Boebert by 0.9 points in our count, which has not called the race. FOX31 reported that counties have until November 25 to finish their canvass, also the deadline for a candidate to request a recount at the candidate’s own expense. Under state law, it added, an automatic recount is required when the margin is 0.5% or less of the leader’s vote, and a requested one must be finished by December 8. Boebert’s campaign has said it expects a recount, which FOX31 noted is not a formal request.¹⁶