Free Republic

Colorado’s Democratic Party is poised to win control of the state Senate and regain a “trifecta” of elected power for the first time since 2014. As of 11 p.m., Democrats held strong margins in all five of the critical Senate races. Led by a group of women candidates, the party appeared to defend its most vulnerable districts while taking two suburban swing areas from Republicans. In Adams County, challenger Faith Winter defeated Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik by 11 percentage points with all precincts counted. Tammy Story led incumbent Sen. Tim Neville by 13 points in the western Denver metro with...

Democratic Rep. Jared Polis will be the new governor of Colorado, after he defeated Republican Walker Stapleton on Tuesday. The five-term congressman, who is the first openly gay man to win a gubernatorial race, pulled away from the Republican state treasurer in recent weeks, despite an onslaught of negative ads directed at him by outside groups. Polis gained the support of major environmental groups after making renewable energy and climate change major points in his campaign. Stapleton was endorsed by President Trump. Trump lost Colorado in the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Clinton by a 48 percent to 43 percent...

More than 360,000 ballots have already been returned in Colorado, but the numbers are lagging behind return numbers from the previous midterm election. Figures released by the Secretary of State’s office on Thursday showed 367,927 ballots have already been returned for this year’s midterm election. But that’s roughly 150,000 fewer than the same turnout reported by the office four years ago. The office reported on Oct. 24, 2014, that 518,610 ballots had already been returned. (A note: the reason for comparing different dates is that this year’s ballots started being mailed out on Oct. 15. But the first day that...

Political analysts have been saying for months that women will be the decisive force in November’s election in Colorado and nationally. So far, in Colorado, men have turned in more ballots than women. In Colorado, the total number of ballots filled out by men is 130,394 versus 126,005 by women, according to figures released today by the Colorado secretary of state’s office. Democrats and Republicans have turned in essentially the same number of ballots, with the Democratic total at 91,580 versus 91,190 for Republicans. Voters who aren’t affiliated with any party turned in 72,154 ballots so far. The next highest...

Republicans in Colorado have cast 2,245 more votes than Democrats in the past week, leading the very early vote count, according to data released today by the Secretary of State. Voters turned in a total of 159,312 ballots by Oct. 23 at around 8:30 a.m., a small sample that might mean little when trying to draw any conclusions thus far. There are 3,282,947 active voters in Colorado who received ballots last week. Election Day is Nov. 6. So far, 57,695 Republicans have voted versus 55,450 Democrats and 44,300 unaffiliated voters. Voters between the ages of 61 and 70 voted more...

As calls mount from both the left and the right for Democratic state Rep. Jovan Melton to step down from his House District 41 seat in Aurora, supporters, including former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, argued Thursday that a double standard is being applied to Melton by the leadership of the Democratic-controlled Colorado House and the Colorado Democratic Party chair, Morgan Carroll. ... Webb ... called out the leadership of the Democratic Party ... “Jim Crow system of justice” and a “political lynching” of Melton. And while they didn’t go so far as to tell African American voters not to vote...

For too long the state has held our roads and bridges hostage while increasing spending on other priorities like Medicaid expansion, hoping we taxpayers get so frustrated by traffic we’ll agree to a tax increase. Well, this fall voters will have a choice. As the Denver Chamber of Commerce pimps a 21% state sales tax increase for transit, roads and a slush fund for cities, there will be an alternative as our Fix Our Damn Roads initiative will also be on the ballot. It will force the state to use its large surplus funds and re-prioritize less than 2 percent...

In the fast-changing political battleground that is suburban Denver, Somali families dine on goat soup and fish fritters in a onetime Chinese restaurant where golden dragons still guard the doorways. Where the English Teacup cafe once stood, a new Japanese dessert bar now stays open late, selling green tea soft-serve and fish-shaped pastries to lines of Korean and Latino teenagers. And up and down Havana Street, auto lots once run by the likes of Dealin’ Doug are now Ethio-Motors, Maaliki Motors and Jordan Motors — names that reflect the new owners and new customers who are part of a hyperspeed...

What to watch: Voters in both parties will cast ballots on Tuesday in a primary that brings Colorado one step closer to determining who will succeed Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who is not running for re-election because of term limits.

Secretly Taped Audio Reveals Steny Hoyer Pressuring Progressive Candidate To Leave Race And Support The Party Choice. Well well well!The DNC and RNC are criminal enterprises. This recording needs to spread far and wide! From The Intercept: Progressive candidate Levi Tillemann met with Congressman Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, to make the case that the party should stay neutral in the Colorado primary and that he had a more plausible path to victory than the same centrism that the Republican incumbent had already beaten repeatedly. Hoyer, however, had his own message he wanted to...

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo is ending his bid for the Republican nomination for Colorado governor on Tuesday because he hasn’t raised the money he believes would be necessary to win an expensive election against a wealthy Democrat willing to spend millions on his campaign, Colorado Politics has learned. “I do not want to win a primary and lose a general, and I fear that was where we were going,” he told Colorado Politics in an interview.