Melat Kiros toppled the longest serving member of Colorado’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, in Tuesday’s primary, riding a wave of discontent with the Democratic establishment and the party’s leaders in Washington.
But a fellow liberal candidate, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who challenged another fixture in Colorado politics, was effectively left watching from the beach. She lost to U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday — and by a sizable margin.
The similarities between the races were clear: DeGette has been in public office for nearly 30 years, all of it as representative of the 1st District. Hickenlooper, meanwhile, has spent the past two decades holding the most high-profile political jobs in the state, rising from being Denver’s mayor, to become a two-term governor, to his current role in the Senate.
Kiros and Gonzales are both much younger than their opponents. They’re both insurgent progressives. They’re both women of color.
So why didn’t Gonzales win, too?
Here’s a look at the differences between the candidates and the races.
Money and time
Kiros had both more time and relatively more money than Gonzales, announcing her challenge to DeGette in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District about a year ago.
By comparison, Gonzales only launched her statewide bid to unseat Hickenlooper in early December, about seven months ago.
A later entrance into the race meant less time for Gonzales to fundraise. Her campaign brought in $869,000 through June 10, compared with the $10 million Hickenlooper has raised so far this cycle.
The relatively small amount of money Gonzales’ raised meant she couldn’t pay for widespread ads to introduce herself to voters across the state. And she needed that, as polling showed a large portion of voters had never heard of her.
Most of Gonzales’ campaign spending was on consulting and staffers.
Making matters worse, Hickenlooper effectively ignored Gonzales’ challenge, refusing to show up at events with her and starving her of the kind of news coverage she needed to make up for her campaign’s limited funds.
Kiros, by comparison, raised $610,000 through June 10. While less than Gonzales’ haul, she didn’t need as much money to reach a much smaller, and much less geographically spread out, electorate.
There were 477,096 active, registered voters in the 1st Congressional District, which is mostly the city of Denver, as of Wednesday. There were about 4.1 million statewide.
DeGette tried to ignore Kiros’ campaign, but Kiros built enough momentum that eventually the congresswoman had to engage.
Statewide vs. Denver
Running and winning a campaign in a city is easier than running and winning a campaign statewide.
It’s a lot easier to reach voters when you can get to them by driving from corner to corner of your electorate in 30 minutes (when Denver traffic is behaving) versus nine hours (from Cortez to Sterling).
Hickenlooper also benefitted from his familiarity among voters after winning three statewide races. Gonzales has won two state Senate contests in Denver — and that did help her keep the results relatively close.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Gonzales was beating Hickenlooper by about 13,000 votes in Denver. But Hickenlooper was winning in each of Colorado’s 63 other counties.
“Hickenlooper is moderate, and I think those moderate rural Dems feel more confident with him,” said Alvina Vasquez, a Democratic political strategist in Colorado. “He has those relationships in those parts of the state.”
Vasquez said running a statewide race is more costly than running a campaign in Denver. Paying staff, traveling and buying ads get expensive.
Summit County Commissioner Nina Waters said Gonzales appealed to her and others in her area who wanted to see a “fighter” representing them in Washington, especially Latino voters. But Waters doesn’t think there was enough information available about Gonzales to help voters who didn’t know about her.
“There’s just so much noise in everyone’s lives,” Waters said.
The left didn’t get behind Gonzales like they did Kiros
Kiros’ campaign was powered by a firestorm of liberal energy, stoked by the Denver branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and the federal super PAC Justice Democrats, which spent more than $500,000 backing her campaign.
Gonzales did not get the same kind of enthusiasm or financial support.
Deep Singh Badhesha, a liberal organizer and provocateur in Denver who backed Kiros, said some on the left didn’t feel Gonzales was committed enough to their platform. Her decision to end her membership with the Denver branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and not endorse Kiros also played a role, he said.
“Why would people go knock doors for you, donate their money if you can’t even say (you support) us,” he said.
Additionally, the liberal political machine is not as organized in other parts of the state like it is in Denver.
Another difference: Kiros was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders as Colorado voters were filling out their primary ballots. Gonzales was backed by Our Revolution, the political nonprofit tied to Sanders but not the Vermont independent himself.
Hickenlooper, meanwhile, seemed immune to the tropes about D.C. incumbents, Democratic strategist Steve Welchert said.
“You can’t dress that badly and be accused of being D.C. slick,” Welchert said of Hickenlooper.
Vasquez said Hickenlooper has also taken more liberal stances in recent years, on things like healthcare and the environment, which may have also insulated him from Gonzales’ challenge.
Gonzales’ view
On Wednesday, when Gonzales was trailing Hickenlooper by 7 percentage points, she was holding her head high despite her loss.
“The number of phone calls I’ve received, text messages I’ve received — DMs from people on social media — that said ‘damn girl, you overperformed, you blew the expectations out of the water,’ to me is a testament,” Gonzales said in an interview. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m freaking proud of what we accomplished.”
She said part of the reason she lost was that organizations that work to elect women, Latinos and progressives sat on the sidelines in the race.
“They couldn’t see the vision,” she said. “They’re based nationally and not on the ground talking to voters not only in Denver, but the small towns and rural communities that have been taken advantage of by the establishment. Those organizations didn’t see what we were seeing. Now they’re seeing it.”
Even though Gonzales didn’t win, Eric Sondermann, a Colorado-based independent political commentator, said she had a strong showing.
Gonzales fared better than former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff did in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate against Hickenlooper in 2020. She was also on track Wednesday afternoon to get more votes than U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet did in his failed primary bid for governor this year.
“She performed so far above expectations against someone as unassailable as John Hickenlooper,” he said.
He sees Gonzales’ share of the vote in keeping with Tuesday’s theme of the highly energized progressive wing of the Democratic Party asserting itself.
Democrats have been despondent over their powerlessness to fight back against President Donald Trump, he said, wanting to “scream” in opposition and have their representatives in Washington join them.
“Last night was sort of that primal scream,” Sondermann said.
As for what’s next for Gonzales?
“Sleep. Rest. Recovery. Laundry,” she said.