Thirteen candidates vying for state legislative seats this year are running without a major party opponent, according to a Colorado Sun analysis of the 2024 ballot.
There are 10 candidates — seven Democrats and three Republicans — running unopposed in state House districts, and three Democrats running opposed in state Senate districts.
The Sun defines a candidate as running unopposed if they don’t have any general election opponent or if their only opponent is a third-party candidate, since it is exceedingly rare in Colorado for such candidates to mount a competitive state legislative campaign. The 13 races will determine the makeup of 13% of the legislature.
The Sun’s analysis comes amid increasing national focus on the thousands of partisan races that go uncontested each election cycle. Ballotpedia, the election tracking website, says that an annual average of 58% of the races it tracked between 2018 and 2023 were uncontested.
The number of uncontested legislative races in Colorado this year is up from 2022, where there were two uncontested Senate districts and four uncontested House districts. In 2020, there were two uncontested state Senate races and nine uncontested state House races.
The Colorado legislative districts that are uncontested this year are almost universally in areas that are considered Democratic or Republican strongholds. And given Democrats’ control of state politics in recent years and recent state Republican party disarray, it’s not surprising that there are more districts where the GOP doesn’t have a candidate than vice versa.
“I have been laser focused on the races where we have the best chance to win and bring back accountability to our state government,” said House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican who is in charge of the Colorado House GOP campaign efforts. “I’m glad some great candidates have stood up to run in important races.”
Here are the state House districts where candidates are running unopposed:
Here are the state Senate districts where candidates are running unopposed:
There are no Colorado congressional candidates running unopposed this year.
Democrat Kathy Gebhardt has no Republican challenger in the race to represent the 2nd Congressional District on the State Board of Education, though she has a Libertarian Party opponent in Ethan Augreen.
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TOO LATE FOR VACANCY APPOINTMENTS IN HOUSE DISTRICTS 37 AND 61
Because the ballot was certified Monday by state elections officials, it’s too late for Republicans to appoint nominees in House Districts 37 and 61, two districts where the GOP candidates exited the race midcycle.
In District 37, Danny Moore, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2022, abruptly ended his campaign without explanation. In District 61, Luis A. Moy was disqualified from running by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office after he didn’t submit a candidate affidavit or a personal financial disclosure as required by law.
In Moore’s case, his departure isn’t such a big deal. Clifford was expected to cruise to reelection regardless.
But Moy was expected to have a decent shot of unseating Democratic state Rep. Eliza Hamrick. She won in 2022 by fewer than 1,200 votes in the district that straddles the line between Arapahoe and Douglas counties.
Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams last year called Hamrick one of his 11 most-wanted Democrats in 2024 as the party battles its way out of a 46-19 Democratic supermajority in the House.
THE NARRATIVE
Democrats begin their assault on Gabe Evans over abortion
The House Majority PAC, a Democratic group, has begun running ads in the 8th Congressional District attacking Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans on abortion. The key claim in their offensive, however, is based on a years’ old survey that Evans says is being misinterpreted.
The 30-second spot features Dr. Emily Schneider, a Colorado obstetrician gynecologist, saying that Evans “supports banning abortion — even here in Colorado, and even in cases of rape or incest.”
The ad cites a candidate survey Evans filled out as part of his 2022 statehouse campaign. In that survey — which has since been removed from the internet — Evans checked a box saying he supports “prohibiting abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life.”
There was no mention of whether abortion should be banned in cases of rape or incest, and the survey only allowed respondents to check “support,” “oppose” or “no response.”Nevertheless, Evans’ Democratic opponents have extrapolated his response to argue that it means he believes abortions shouldn’t be allowed even in cases of rape or incest.
Evans says that’s not true.
“My position is clear: I oppose a federal abortion ban — it’s an issue for the states — and I’ve always supported exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother,” Evans said in a written statement.
That being said, Evans is certainly opposed to abortion. In another 2022 candidate survey, when asked “under what circumstances should abortion be allowed,” he said that “life begins at conception” and “if the circumstances wouldn’t warrant killing a born person, the unborn also should not be killed.” Notably, he did not call for exceptions for rape or incest, or when a mother’s life is at risk in the response.
Evans supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade and said he would support a bill in Congress that would make permanent a prohibition on federal funds being used for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or a mother’s life is at risk. The measure would also prohibit private insurance offered through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, from covering abortions if the plans are subsidized by the government.
Evans has been hard to pin down on when in a pregnancy abortion should be outlawed in cases that don’t involve rape or incest of when a mother’s life is at risk. When asked by The Colorado Sun earlier this year at what point in gestation abortion should be banned, he didn’t provide a specific answer.
“We can’t paint ourselves into a corner with too-strict laws,” he said, adding that he couldn’t remember how he voted when he was a private citizen in 2020 on Proposition 115, the Colorado ballot measure that would have banned abortion after 22 weeks of gestation.
Evans’ opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, meanwhile, is running a new TV ad featuring Adams County Sheriff Gene Claps, a fellow Democrat, touting her work on immigration and fentanyl and refuting Republicans’ attacks on those issues.
“Gabe Evans’ attacks are just not true,” Claps says in the ad.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
ELECTION 2024
A Morning Consult poll conducted among 498 likely voters showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump in Colorado 55%-40%. The poll, which appears to be the first public survey in Colorado since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, was conducted from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8. Trump lost in Colorado to Joe Biden in 2020 by 13.5 percentage points. Biden led Trump by similar margins in 2020 polls in Colorado conducted at roughly the same point in the cycle as the recent Morning Consult survey.
TV ADS
Cats Aren’t Trophies, the issue committee supporting a statewide measure on the November ballot that would prohibit the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx, is purchasing tens of thousands of dollars in TV ad time as the Nov. 5 election approaches, according to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
STATE DEMOGRAPHER
State Demographer Elizabeth Garner is retiring from the Department of Local Affairs, where she has worked for two decades, effective Nov. 29. She has played an important role in shaping Colorado policy and politics. “Elizabeth’s contributions to the state of Colorado are immeasurable,” Maria De Cambra, executive director of DOLA, said in a written statement. “Her deep knowledge, commitment, and passion for understanding our state’s demographic landscape have left a lasting legacy. We thank her for her years of service to our great state.”
PERACARE
Premiums for PERACare, the Medicare Advantage plan for Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association members, are expected to be “much higher” next year, the pension’s chief benefits officer Patrick Lane said at a town hall earlier this summer. How much higher? Members will find out when enrollment notices go out this fall, but it could be a sizable jump; premiums haven’t increased in the past three years.
DA VACANCY
Former Gov. Bill Ritter was tapped to help vet applications for a short-term gig as the next district attorney in the 15th Judicial District. Ritter — a former district attorney himself — will be joined by three other Colorado prosecutors and Jenna Goldstein, a deputy legal counsel to the governor’s office, on the review panel appointed by Gov. Jared Polis. The current district attorney, Joshua Vogel, is resigning from the southeastern Colorado district effective Oct. 4 with just three months left in his term. Republican prosecutor Andrew Hayden is running unopposed in the 2024 election.
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COLORADO GOP
Colorado GOP chairmanship dispute may be resolved by Election Day, despite the best efforts of Dave Williams’ attorneys
We may have an answer before Election Day as to who is the real chairman of the Colorado GOP.
A judge in El Paso County this week set a two-and-a-half day trial starting Oct. 14 in the lawsuit filed by Chairman Eli Bremer seeking to dislodge Chairman Dave Williams from the party’s top post and force him to relinquish the party’s resources.
In reality, that won’t leave much time for the leadership swap to have an effect. Ballots start being mailed to voters Oct. 11. Most TV air time and mail ads will have been planned and booked by then.
Still, the legal drama rumbles on.
Attorneys for Williams sought to push the trial until after Election Day, arguing they were too busy with personal and professional commitments to prepare for a trial before Nov. 5.
“I think there isn’t really a need for speed,” said Michael Molina, another attorney for Williams, claiming that most of the “heavy lifting” for the election had already been completed.
El Paso County District Court Judge Eric Bentley, however, sided with Bremer’s attorney, Chris Murray, and said the case should be resolved sooner rather than later.
“It appears self-evident that the Republican state committee cannot function as intended without its leadership issue resolved,” Bentley said. “It is necessary in order for the party apparatus to function as intended — as a state party —before the election that this issue be resolved before the election.”
To be clear: The state party’s campaign finance reports don’t indicate the Colorado GOP under Williams’ leadership is doing much of anything to help its general election candidates as November approaches. There have been some emails sent out and a few Zoom calls, but that’s about it.
Many campaigns don’t trust Williams and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which would normally coordinate with the party, is siding with Bremer in the leadership dispute.
One issue at play: David Pigott, an attorney for Williams, argued that he is the real attorney for the Colorado GOP, not Murray, who filed Bremer’s lawsuit on behalf of the party. He is seeking to get the case tossed by arguing that technical point.
It’s a bit complicated because Pigott is representing Williams and the Colorado GOP in a separate lawsuit filed in Arapahoe County by Williams against his opponents in which Murray is representing the defendants.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
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