February 18, 2010 11:19 PM UTC

Has an Incumbent Ever Lost in a Primary in Colorado?

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Thanks to Voyageur, who notes in the comments below that Wayne Aspinall and Bryon Rogers, both Democrats, lost primary challenges in 1972 and 1970, respectively.

Calling all Polsters! We need your help!

We were curious about this question given all the discussion about the Democratic primary between Sen. Michael Bennet and former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff: Has there ever been a successful primary challenge of an incumbent in a top-tier office, such as Congress, Senate or Governor?

We’re not going to argue about what makes a “true” incumbent. Bennet was appointed to the U.S. Senate when Ken Salazar left the office, just like Republican John Suthers was appointed to be Attorney General when then-AG Salazar was elected to the Senate in 2004. Neither Bennet nor Suthers got their respective titles by winning an election, but they were both “incumbents” because you could call them “Senator” or “Attorney General” heading into their first election.

So, with that definition cleared up, we looked back 20 years, beginning with the 1990 election. Some of that data is still available, and some is not, but from what we found (and what we remember), there have only been two primary challengers of a sitting incumbent in the last 20 years, and neither were successful.

1. 2002 CD-1 Democratic Primary

Ramona Martinez challenged incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in a Democratic primary. DeGette won an easy 73-17 victory over Martinez (who, ironically, was one of Romanoff’s first supporters in the Senate race).

2. 2008 CD-5 Republican Primary

Two 2006 candidates, Jeff Crank and Bentley Rayburn, challenged former opponent and incumbent Rep. Doug Lamborn in the 2008 primary. Lamborn won easily with 44% of the vote (compared to 29.5% for Crank and 26% for Rayburn).

Polsters, we need your help to know if we’re missing someone. How many other times in modern Colorado political history has someone challenged an incumbent in a Primary election? (and we mean serious challengers, not just people who put their name on the ballot and raised $2,000) Has there ever been a successful challenge of an incumbent — in a top-tier race — in a primary?