Trisha Calvarese, a former congressional and campaign staffer, was selected Monday by a Democratic vacancy committee to be the party’s nominee for the June 25 special election that will determine who serves out the term of Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District.
“I will fight to defend Social Security, to get the government out of reproductive choices and freedoms, I will work to create paths to well paid union jobs and apprenticeships right out of high school,” Calvarese, a first-time political candidate, told committee members. “We can flip this seat.”
But the reality is Calvarese faces steep odds in the special election. The 4th District, which includes Douglas County and Loveland and spans the Eastern Plains, is highly favorable to Republicans. Buck, for instance, won his last two elections by at least 23 percentage points.
Only one Democrat has represented the 4th District since 1997 — Betsy Markey, who lost her reelection bid in 2010 after one term. The district’s boundaries have been redrawn twice since then to make the district more favorable to the GOP.
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That means former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, the Republican nominee for the contest who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and 2022, is the clear favorite. Democrats, however, are feeling bullish about their chances given Lopez’s history of run-ins with law enforcement, most recently in 2020, when he settled a lawsuit filed by federal prosecutors alleging that after he left the SBA, he violated federal law by attempting to improperly influence actions of the agency.
Calvarese won after three rounds of voting, beating out three other candidates for the position, including political science professor Karen Breslin, Marine veteran Ike McCorkle and addiction recovery advocate John Padora.
Calvarese won in the final round by securing 64.5% of the vote in the final, head-to-head round with Padora. Candidates had to secure a majority of support to advance from one round to the next. There were about 250 delegates eligible to vote during the virtual vacancy committee meeting Monday night, though only 118 voted in the first round.
Buck resigned from Congress on March 22. His term ends in early January 2025, so whoever wins the special election will take over for only about six months, unless they also win the general election in November.
The special election is being held the same day as Colorado’s primaries, during which voters in the 4th District will advance a Democrat and Republican to the general election.
The long list of Republicans running to represent the district include U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, state Rep. Richard Holtorf, and former state Sens. Jerry Sonnenberg and Ted Harvey. Lopez has vowed to serve as a placeholder and says he won’t run in the primary.
On the Democratic side, Calvarese is seeking the Democratic nomination in addition to her special election bid. Also running are Padora, McCorkle and Breslin.
Calvarese may have a slight advantage in the primary after becoming the special election nominee because her name will appear twice on the June 25 ballot — something no other candidate on the ballot, Democrat or Republican, will have.
It has been decades since there was a special election in Colorado to fill a congressional vacancy.
In 1982, Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Jack Swigert, a former astronaut, died soon after he was elected to Congress in the newly created 6th Congressional District. A special election was held in early 1983, and Republican Dan Schaefer of Lakewood won the seat. Schaefer went on to hold the seat until early 1999, after he decided not to run for reelection to Congress.