CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 18, 2010 11:19 PM UTC
16 Comments
Byron Rogers “was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-second and to the ten succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1951-January 3, 1971). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1970 to the Ninety-second Congress. He was a resident of Denver, Colorado until his death there December 31, 1983. He was interred in Mount Lindo Cemetery near Tiny Town, Colorado.” (Wikipedia)
Rogers lost to anti-war candidate Craig Barnes, who then lost to Republican DA “Iron Mike” McKevitt. McKevitt, in turn, lost to (drum roll, please) Pat Schroeder in 1972.
Actually, I’m doing some legal research today and happen to be on my computer. As a young reporter for UPI, I covered both races.
— Wikipedia
Aspinall fell victim to environmentalist Alan Merson in the 1972 Democratic primary. Blinded by his power in Washington, Aspinall overlooked two vital changes in the voter Demographic. Reapportionment had added Adams County to his district, where his advocacy of natural resource development meant little to voters. He also ignored the advent of the 18-year old vote — effective for the first time that year. This brought an influx of new, first-time voters, to the primary who were much more environmentally minded than Aspinall’s old base. Wayne normally drew heavily from Republicans and Unafilliateds and cruised to re-election. None of those could help him in the Democratic primary.
Ironically, the Republicans assumed Aspinall was unbeatable — and really didn’t want to beat him anyway. Thus, they nominated the relatively liberal — and anti-war — Jim Johnson. After Aspinall’s defeat, Johnson won election and became a thorn in the side of the right-wing Republicans in Colorado.
Bill Cleary would argue that Aspinall was not really the incumbent in the new 4th CD of the 1972 election.
Aspinall was set to retire after the 1970 term, but redistricting had gone so poorly for Democrats, Aspinall was seen as the only viable option to keep the 4th CD seat in the Dem column.
More than just the Adams County issue, the District went from a North South District of the entire West Slope to a split Northern District with Grand Junction/ Palisade being in with Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley and Adams County. Aspinall lost the entire southern portion of the district and Pueblo.
A State Legislator named Bill Armstrong created a Lakewood/ suburban district for himself with the new congressional seat Colorado had secured in redistricting. This screwed Aspinall and the West Slope.
The cool end of the story: Aspinall made a special trip to DC. He took Jim Johnson around to the Speaker of the House and every chair of every committee and introduced Johnson as “my congressman”.
Aspinall was a very classy person.
as his chief of staff. Imagine that happening today with the intense partisanship of congressional staffs, which is actually worse than their bosses’.
Aspinall was the major roadblock to faster passage of the Wilderness Act, as committee chair. The Act took 8 years in Congress to pass. I heard some funny stories from The Wilderness Society lobbyist that faced off against Aspinall for those years, who has since passed away.
President Johnson finally signed the Wilderness Act in 1964.
LBJ-Wilderness Act signing statement:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu…
In a final justice, for many years Aspinall’s Palisade home was occupied by the chair of the local Sierra Club and dedicated wilderness activist (who got to testify before a congressional field hearing on wilderness in GJ). And wasn’t Bill Cleary’s son Pat a GJ Sentinel reporter?
He is in Virginia the last I heard. Near Fredrick. I know he still writes (not for newspapers). We have always hoped he would return to the Sentinel. But the pay was so bad and they had two small kids.
He wrote a great piece on ranchers moving to the Black Hills during the “Cattle Free in 93 campaign”. I think he coined the phrase “Condo’s galore in 94′.
That’s all I know.
Congressman Jim Johnson told the newly elected Brown, “Bill Cleary goes with the office”. He stayed with Brown until 1982 when Bill retire from his congressional career. Cleary moved back to GJ to run CLUB 20 during the post oil shale years.
Armstrong’s newly created 5th District didn’t include Lakewood, which was, along with the rest of Jefferson County, in Don Brotzman’s 2nd CD.
Redistricting added enough Democratic precincts in West Denver to the 2nd, plus traditionally conservative Boulder (believe it!) was much less so after the advent of the vote for 18 year olds.
This shift opened the way for a Democrat to win in the 2nd, and Watergate and Nxon’s resignation sealed it.
Tim Wirth won election in 1974, survived a squeaker with Ed Scott the next cycle, and the 2nd has thereafter been reliably Democratic for nearly four decades.
I am not nearly as good with Front Range political history. I did hear years latter that the redistricting of 1972 was a small regret for Senator Bill Armstrong. Specifically in the tarnishing of Aspinall’s reputation post primary.
I know this thread was about Colorado “incumbents”, but here’s an interesting synopsis of how appointed Senators have fared over the past half-decade.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/polit…
obviously not the past half-decade
are place-holders.