The Denver newspaper is reporting that Democrat Andrew Romanoff has decided not to run for Congress in the newly-redistricted CD-6.
We discussed yesterday that Romanoff didn't have too long to decide about whether or not he would challenge Joe Miklosi for the Democratic nomination and the right to challenge incumbent Rep. Mike Coffman. Romanoff's entry into the race may have forced Miklosi to the sidelines rather than face a primary against the much better-known former House Speaker, but the longer he waited to make a decision on running, the more he risked further alienating Democrats who were not pleased with his challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet in 2010. Romanoff's consideration of the race certainly didn't help Miklosi's ongoing fundraising efforts, and had he waited until, say, mid-January to make a decision and still opted against running, he would have severely hampered Miklosi's bid to take out Coffman.
While there may be a few more names floated on the Democratic side for CD-6, we would expect that Miklosi will go unchallenged for the nomination at this point.
UPDATE: Miklosi is working hard on trying to discourage a primary, though no amount of endorsements will likely be enough to deter potential opponents until he proves he can raise enough money himself. In a press release sent out today, Miklosi's campaign says he has the support of "every Democrat serving in the Colorado State House of Representatives." Full release after the jump.
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As FOX 31's Eli Stokolsreports:
Congressman Mike Coffman issued a long statement Monday expressing both disappointment about a judge's decision last week to re-draw his district and excitement about a tougher reelection fight next year...
"Aurora Democrats mostly come from hard working class families and they are not at all like the Nancy Pelosi liberal Democrats of Denver and Boulder. With the legacy of Fitzsimons, Lowry and Buckley, many of them are veterans, and my Army and Marine Corps background will be a big plus."
Coffman, who was elected in 2008 and easily reelected in 2010, is expected to face a stronger-than-expected Democratic challenge...
Right now, state Rep. Joe Miklosi is the only declared Democratic candidate running in the 6th, but rumors are running rampant that other candidates -- Andrew Romanoff and state Sen. Morgan Carroll, among others -- could also be looking at a run.
Miklosi, who has already filled top campaign staff positions, is holding a fundraiser Monday night in Aurora and, overall, looking to demonstrate his viability in an effort to head off a potential primary challenger.
Carroll, D-Aurora, is among the hosts for Miklosi's fundraiser -- state Reps. Rhonda Fields and Nancy Todd are two other prominent Aurora Democrats already on board -- and is not giving any indication that she's considering a run.
What we understand is that Sen. Morgan Carroll of Aurora is not interested in running--hosting last night's fundraiser for CD-6 candidate Rep. Joe Miklosi is about as strong a message as she can send. With that said, the new CD-6 is quickly elevating to national prominence, perhaps one of the very best pickup opportunities available to Democrats in the nation. That being the case, national Democrats have a strong interest in taking no chances on victory.
Sources tell us that former U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff is much more interested in Mike Coffman's seat than press reports heretofore have indicated, and is considered a very strong contender if he gets into the race. Romanoff's high profile as a Senate candidate and history as Speaker of the Colorado House make him one of the most formidable contenders for Coffman's seat available. The problem as we understand it is Romanoff's trademark cautious style: he may be under the impression that he can wait to declare his candidacy, kind of like he waited to do so in his challenge against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.
That would be most unwise. Romanoff's failure to get into the 2010 Senate race for months while Bennet burnished his credentials and won over allies was a major factor in his defeat in the primary. If Romanoff thinks that delaying his entry into the race won't strengthen Miklosi--or lure others with competitive stature into the race--he could be making another career-jeopardizing mistake. We'll be honest with you: not many people get as many chances as Romanoff may get again here, especially after the kind of nasty insurgent campaign he ran against Bennet. The window for Romanoff to make up his mind is quite small.
On the other side of this race, we've heard some interesting things--despite Coffman's bravado above, it's an academic fact that an arch-conservative like himself will face huge, possibly intractable problems holding on to this seat. Remember also that Coffman is far from universally loved by the Colorado Republican establishment: that's part of the reason why you're not seeing the outrage from Ryan Call over Coffman's redrawn district you might otherwise expect. With all this in mind, it has been suggested to us--suggested, mind you, not necessarily predicted--that a Republican challenger could emerge to attempt to better hold the seat.
As hard as we've (deservedly) been on Ryan Frazier, could he beat Coffman in a GOP primary in the new CD-6? That's just one name, there are a few others we're not quite yet ready to mention--but we're pretty confident that Coffman knows who they are.
That's the fluid state of things right now. Obviously we'll be updating as we learn more.
There's really no reason that a freshman member of the Denver School Board should be getting as much publicity as Andrea Merida has received in the last year. But then again, there's really no reason that a Denver School Board member should have made so many pointless, and avoidable, mistakes in less than one year.
So it is that the large Denver newspaper is reporting that a recall effort has begun to remove Merida from the Denver School Board. We can't say we're surprised at this; we wrote in late July that her political career was probably coming to an end sooner than she expected. As we said after it was revealed that Merida had been working for the Andrew Romanoff campaign in a paid position, at the same time that she was openly attacking Sen. Michael Bennet (who was the former Denver Schools Superintendent):
Merida seems to think it is an important point that she endorsed Romanoff before she was hired by his campaign, which, of course, is completely irrelevant. And her defiant "to suggest that my work on the Denver Board of Education is for sale" statement misses the point that it was her own nondisclosure that brought up the question in the first place.
The fact that she was a paid staffer for the campaign trying to bring down the former head of Denver Public Schools, and did not disclose this, all the while politicizing the DPS board's policymaking in ways that directly sought to benefit the campaign she was employed by, provokes grave questions about Andrea Merida's fitness to serve in any capacity. The fact that Merida barely seems to understand why it was wrong in the first place only makes those questions grow louder.
Once the petition language is certified, supporters of the recall (led by community activist Jose Silva) have 60 days to collect 4,032 signatures from registered voters living in Merida's District 2 (which is Southwest Denver, South of 6th Ave. and West of I-25), which is not really an onerous task. If sufficient signatures are gathered, a two-part ballot would be presented to voters; one question would be to approve the recall, with the second question a choice between a new group of candidates.
Merida has stumbled over her own feet literally from day one on the School Board, and we'd be surprised if she's still on the Board this time next year.
The Democratic "Unity" Rally was held this afternoon in Denver to show that things were just hunky-dorey for Sen. Michael Bennet and former challenger Andrew Romanoff (full press release from the Bennet campaign and from Colorado Democrats after the jump).
Said Romanoff:
"I am very, very proud of our grassroots team, and proud to see so many folks standing with us together in this united Democratic Party today. For not just my sake, and not Michael's sake, and not even for the sake of the Democratic Party, I'm asking you today to throw your support fully and unequivocally behind Michael Bennet for the United States Senate."
This is all pretty standard stuff in terms of the Kumbaya atmosphere, which makes it all the more curious that Colorado Republicans don't seem prepared to do the same thing just yet. Heck, GOP Gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes apparently can't even get a phone call right now from other Republicans.
We're playing a little bit of catch-up in providing our analysis of the various different outcomes from Tuesday's Primary. Spurred on by a good Politico story today from David Catanese, here's our thoughts on how and why Sen. Michael Bennet defeated Andrew Romanoff in Tuesday's Democratic Primary...
Make your predictions below on who you think will win the big statewide Primary races. Get them in before 7:00 tonight to make sure you get full bragging rights for a correct answer, and we'll think up some sort of prize for the person who makes the most correct predictions.
PREDICTIONS
U.S. Senate (Democrats)
U.S. Senate (Republicans)
Governor (Republicans)
Treasurer (Republicans)
Tiebraker: The total number of votes cast in the Republican Primary for Treasurer.
Make sure to put your predictions in a numerical, percentages format. For example: Walker Stapleton over J.J. Ament, 54-46
POLS NOTE: In order to make comments easier to read and understand, we decided to create a new post for these returns, rather than just updating the original post.
Below are the turnout numbers reported a little after 3:00 p.m. today by the SOS. Remember that there is some lag time in the reporting process (in other words, there are more ballots returned than what is listed below, but what is listed below is what the various County Clerks reported to the SOS today):
*Party/ Ballots Returned Thus Far/ Total Active Voters/ Percent Returned Democrats: 279,462/ 817,458/ 34%
Republicans: 314,264/ 855,667/ 37%
Richard Coolidge of the Secretary of State's office also included this note in today's ballot update:
Colorado County clerks may begin processing (not tabulating) ballots 15 days before the election. All 64 counties should have a good sample of mail ballots tabulated after 7:00pm tomorrow evening. Remember, 46 counties are voting exclusively by mail, so ballots received Tuesday may not be included in that original release of results. The remaining 18 counties will still have mail results, but will also need to factor in votes cast at precinct polling places (like El Paso, Pitkin, Las Animas, etc) or at vote centers (like Weld, Park, Archuleta, etc).
Our read on these numbers? The Michael Bennet campaign is going to be sweating it out tomorrow, hoping to see turnout reach levels cross well into the 300,000 level (the higher the turnout above 300,000, the better the odds that Bennet wins).
As for the GOP turnout, we're curious to see how big the undervote might be. Turnout is pretty high already considering the amount of grumbling from Republicans over their (lack of) great choices for Governor, and to a lesser extent, U.S. Senate, but if most of the returned ballots are casting a vote in the race for Governor and Senate, this benefits Scott McInnis and Jane Norton in their respective races.
New polling out this morning from Public Policy Polling has some interesting numbers across the board in the three top-ticket Primaries in Colorado:
U.S. Senate (Democrats) Michael Bennet: 49%
Andrew Romanoff: 43%
Undecided: 9%
U.S. Senate (Republicans) Jane Norton: 45%
Ken Buck: 43%
Undecided: 12%
Governor (Republicans) Scott McInnis: 41%
Dan Maes: 40%
Undecided: 19%
It looks like all of these races are going to come down to the turnout numbers, with higher turnout favoring Bennet, Norton and McInnis (because these three have the highest name ID in their respective races). The Secretary of State's office will release the latest turnout figures after 3:00 p.m. today, so check back here for that update.
Michael Bennet's holding on to a small lead the day before the Democratic primary for US Senate in Colorado, 49-43 over challenger Andrew Romanoff.
Snip
Both candidates are relatively popular with Bennet holding a 57/24 approval rating and Romanoff sporting a 52/27 favorability spread. Bennet's approval rating with primary voters was 53/22 when PPP last looked at the race in May so the spirited primary campaign doesn't appear to have had a negative impact on his overall popularity within the party, a good sign for him if he does indeed move onto the fall.
