A wild election cycle ended with a bang. On a national level, the scope of former President Trump’s victory has sent shockwaves across the country that will reverberate for at least another four years.
Colorado kicked that trend. While the trend lines showing percentage shifts in the election look like a red wave rolling across the country, Colorado represented one of the few areas with significant blue arrows. It resulted in a lot of status quo for the state.
In congressional races, the state appears headed to the same 5-3 (potentially 4-4) Democrat-to-Republican split it started with. While three districts will have a new representative, there will likely be only two new members of Congress. But each sent someone from the same party that represented it before.
By tucking tail and running from a re-match against Adam Frisch, Lauren Boebert assured her return to Washington, D.C., a city she spends a lot of time complaining about. Boebert beat her well-funded Democratic challenger in the 4th Congressional District by more than 10 points. That will make her the dean of the Colorado Republican congressional contingent.
Outside of a major redistricting change or a shock primary challenge, Boebert should retain her new office for as long as she wants. Combined with the fall of Proposition 131 — which I argued would be the only way she could be defeated in light of such a big win — Boebert is destined to be in Congress for years to come.
Her weekly flights to the nation’s capital may be a little awkward, though.
Rep.-Elect Jeff Hurd, one of two freshman Republican representatives, began his campaign as a protest against Boebert’s brand of soundbite politics. Whether Boebert thought she might lose to Hurd or knew that she could not beat Frisch, Hurd put the Republican-leaning district right back into the safe column.
The 4th CD’s loss (Boebert will never serve her constituents as well as the retired Rep. Ken Buck did) will be the 3rd CD’s gain. Hurd is thoughtful, soft-spoken, and ready to tackle complex issues. It should not take long for leadership to recognize his inherent value. In a few years, he may be the Republican answer to Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who has had a meteoric rise in the halls of Congress.
Boebert and Hurd will be joined by Jeff Crank (there must be something about the name “Jeff”). Like Hurd, Crank will bring an intellectual aptness to his position. He should hit the ground running and bring an energetic approach Colorado Springs residents may not be accustomed to seeing.
It is still to be seen whether Gabe Evans joins those three.
In one of the country’s most competitive districts, Rep. Yadira Caraveo and Evans continue a seesaw race as votes trickle in from different counties. Regardless, Democrats across the country need to study Caraveo’s campaign strategy.
In addition to being a coin-flip seat based on registration and performance data, it is also home to a large Latino population. Large swathes of those voters abandoned Democrats across most of the country. While Caraveo’s support among Latinos dipped compared to 2022, she was able to keep enough of her coalition together to give her a fighting chance.
Caraveo did so by not just putting distance between herself and the most progressive elements of her party, but actively highlighting it. Democrats blasted Caraveo for voting to condemn Vice President Kamala Harris’s record on immigration.
When attacks were leveled against Caraveo about prior state house votes to decriminalize small amounts of fentanyl, she did not waste time trying to explain; Caraveo went on the offensive with her own ad citing her efforts to prosecute drug dealers.
The rest of the congressional races featured incumbent Democrats cruising to victory: Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen all rolled to double-digit margins.
At the state level, Democrats retained their supermajority in the state House and came within a whisker of winning one in the state Senate. That should allow them to continue to govern much as they have for the past several years — left of center, but resistant to the most radical members of their caucus.
Of course, Democrats had a major assist from Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, who bled off party funds to help his own failed campaign to beat Crank in the June primary followed by an intraparty fracas that bled out into courts.
Effectively, Williams accomplished to both defund the state GOP and make them look crazy incompetent all at once. The next circus should take place in a few months when a full meeting of the central committee determines what happens next.
So while the rest of the country experiences whiplash as a new administration and Congress are sworn in next January, Colorado will continue on the steady course it has traveled for the past decade.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.