The elections going on Tuesday night are going to be very interesting in Colorado for a multitude of reasons. In 2008, CO broke ‘blue’, rather than the ‘purple’ it had been for several previous elections. The Front Range area of CO (includes the 7 most populous counties- Denver, Adams, El Paso, Arapahoe, Jefferson, Weld, Larimer; first two are primarily Dem and the rest Rep) will be a real test this go-around.
For you political junkies, and those who like the inside-baseball look of politics, the real test that’s going on is in the gubernatorial race. Dan Maes, the Republican candidate thrust forward via TEA Party support, has very little chance of breaking into double-digits. The real race is between Tom Tancredo, Constitution Party, and John Hickenlooper, Democrat. But what makes this a more far-reaching contest is that the number of voters that turn out for Maes will determine the make-up of the Republican party for the next 2 years- the number of Bonus Members that can vote in the GOP Party will be determined here based on percentage of voters for the Republican gubernatorial candidate. This is the first year where the ‘outlying counties’ could actually meet or beat the top 7 counties. And that will have a dramatic effect on the party.
The races to watch this Tuesday:
For Governor- Tom Tancredo (C) vs John Hickenlooper (D)
For Senate – Ken Buck (R) vs Michael Bennet (D)
For Congress- CO 2: Stephen Bailey (R) vs Jared Polis (D)
CO 7: Ryan Frazier (R) vs Ed Perlmutter (D)
CO 3: Scott Tipton (R) vs John Salazar (D)
CO 4: Cory Gardner (R) vs Betsy Markey (D)
Other races: CO Treasurer, Sec of State, and Attorney General are likely to go (R) based on latest polling. 3 other congressional races- CO 1, CO 6, and CO 5 are likely to remain with their incumbents (DeGette, (D) Coffman, (R) and Lamborn, (R), respectively). They are in party strongholds and their opponents have brought little competition. CO 1 is primarily Denver county, which is strong Dem, and CO 6 is Douglas, Arapahoe, and Elbert counties, and CO 5 is El Paso and south-central CO, strongly GOP.
Ballot initiatives will be extremely important- a few initiatives that will be watched will be 60, 61, 101, 62, and 63. The first 3 are pushing initiatives to rein in government taxing and spending; 62 is a ‘personhood’ amendment, and 63 is one that will ‘repeal’ the Obama Health Care mandate for those in Colorado.
Another movement that has been pushed over the last 2 years is one that has been pushing to remove or ‘clear the bench’ of all Colorado justices up for a retainer vote. Given that the Supremes in Colorado have been heavily legislating from the bench, this is one that, for the first time, may remove every judicial position up for a vote.
I ran a major Senate campaign here in Colorado; I am working to get in position to become the head of the GOP in Colorado as well. This is going to be an interesting year here. I’ll be updating thru the night; polls close locally at 7:30 pm Mountain time.
Here are some links for those that wish to follow some of the activity here in Colorado:
http://www.clearthebenchcolorado.org/ (for judicial retaining votes)
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=CO (CO districts and reps)
http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_2010_ballot_measures (ballot measures)
http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/contests/geo/CO (CO election polling)
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado (CO information)
NYT runs down the CO races: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/538s-ultimate-hour-by-hour-district-by-district-election-guide/?hp Funny thing- this does not cover all the races, and the polling used is horribly bad.