November 27, 2006 09:53 PM UTC

2008 - Colorado Senate Seats and Term Limits

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• by: El Paso Rockefeller Republican

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

There are 18 senate seats up for grabs in 2008. There are, by my count, 10 of these seats with open races. They are

SD-8; Taylor – R: that was a close race when open in ’00

SD-10; May – R: Probably one of the reddest of El Paso County seats

SD-12; McElhaney – R: Probably safe though not as safe as 10;

SD-18; Tupa – D: almost as safe for Ds as 10 for Rs

SD-19; Windels – D: closer than SD-8;

SD-21; Boyd – D: slightly less safe than 12 for Rs;

SD-25; Takis – D: more like 19 than 21;

SD-26; Dyer – R: almost as safe as 10 for an R;

SD-29: Hagedorn – D: fairly safe;

SD-35: Gordon – D: fairly safe, especially with Borodkin

So it looks like only SD-8 for Rs and SD-19 and 25 for Ds are really good flip potentials. Does this indicate that the balance of the senate with the ’06 D pickups is likely to remain unchanged in ’08?

Does anyone see other likely flip races?

The other interesting question for El Paso County is who is going to run for the two open seats? For SD-12, it would look likely that Cloer in HD-17 is the likely but he lives in SD-11 right now (if we see a move we can be sure).  Gardner lives in SD-12 but is a freshman. Both of them scored under 60% in their HD races so it may open the door for challengers. Other likelies would be Sally Clark from the City Council, Keith King who formerly held HD-21 though there is rumor he is launching a business venture. Don’t know if any of the CD-5 candidates would consider a run – Rivera or Anderson could be tough.

For SD-10, Looper in HD-19 lives in SD-10. With her 66/33 win in HD-19, she looks good (about 40% of HD-19 lies in SD-10 and it is the redder part – the rest of the district is even redder).

Not sure the Dems have anybody on the bench that can really challenge for these seats (Merrifield lives in SD-11, the seat Morse just won).

Any other names out there?