U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 13, 2011 05:52 PM UTC
46 Comments
I agree with Mr. Barber – make all 7 districts competitive. Our democracy is much better if our reps have to truly earn the right to continue to represent us.
Watching our state, I would fully expect to run about what we do now anyway.
You’re lucky to have an active representative in spite of safety. And I do have to give DeGette some recognition for showing up places this year, but it’s really disheartening (if nothing else) to have inaccessible representation.
The best thing for constituent representation is competitive districts where the elected ones can’t just phone it in but have to work at keeping the job. It would also inject more interest into elections, especially off year, and give more voters a reason to bother to vote. The fewer safe districts and inevitable incumbents the better.
competitive as possible. What would be the downside? That neither party would have a district that was a given and they’d have to work hard to get good candidates with positions that appeal to the most voters? Oh, the horror.
With seven highly competitive districts, campaign fundraising will only get worse in dominating the time and attention of the candidates — challengers and incumbents alike.
Do we really want only millionaires to run for office? Or the grip on our incumbents ever-tightened by well-funded special interests?
I don’t think the business community could afford to go buy every seat.
and a bunch of other states.
Nah, me neither…
Campaign Finance Reform That Actually Works
no real choice for huge segments of the population who live in the “wrong” safe district, I’ll take competitive districts.
is a bunch of identical-looking polished white actors who make up their positions as they go based on what tests well.
Which politicians would you say are the most passionate? Which ones stick to their beliefs regardless of the polls? Which ones can get elected year after year but wouldn’t fit on the cover of any celebrity magazine? You think Henry Waxman looks good in a typical dirty campaign commercial?
All the people who fell for David’s anti-Boulder trolling seem not to realize that the only way to get REAL diversity in Congress is to have less diversity in the individual districts: that’s why we have black Congresspeople in the House and no black Senators, for example. It’s a principle that’s been understood for decades, but apparently it makes for boring blogging so we have to get rid of it.
and we’ve had both change from R to D and a really great responsive Rep in Perlmutter. In terms of Colorado, where we don’t have have any Black congressmen either anyway, presumably because there isn’t a district with enough Black voters (?), we have elected a Colorado Hispanic Senator state wide and John Salazar was elected from a district that isn’t safe D or safe Hispanic and is in fact an example of what can happen in a competitive situation. Neither he nor brother Ken terribly slick. For this state, I don’t agree with your point.
Outside of the general metro (+/- CD1) they are a statistical anomaly.
The curious case of Perlmutter! He has to worry about voters the most of our seven and is somehow nearly everyone’s favorite. Almost like being forced to justify positions and being willing to compromise, instead of issuing talking point press releases in an echo chamber and stamping your foot while blaming the party opposite for everything wrong in the world, is a good thing.
http://dola.colorado.gov/dlg/d…
He’s proposed a number of things that have Wall St up in arms. I’d say Ed is proof you can have a very popular rep who will not hug the middle – and is loved in a competitive district.
Paul Wellstone was another example, he was a lot more liberal than most of his supporters and had to work his ass of every election. But he did get elected.
for a black candidate to be elected to congress here, in spite of the lack of any districts with black majorities or very large minorities, in the same way that the Salazars were elected; not as particularly representing their “group” but as candidates with broad appeal. Neither John nor Ken Salazar ever ran as The Hispanic candidate.
And, course, the only kind of safe districts we have here are safe R or D, not safe for any particular D minority. And then there is the matter of Obama, who did win a state wide Senate race, winning nation wide, even more of a challenge than district or state.
I believe demographics are moving us away from a world where minorities can’t win without their own special districts although it has made sense to carve out districts to give them that chance, where possible. Once again, not really much of an option here in Colorado.
I think Carroll may eventually set his sights higher if the opportunity presents itself.
Percentage points-wise, Jews, blacks, and homosexuals are all technically overly represented in our legislature. Probably because no one there who fits under these categories defines themselves purely by the distinction. They are just people.
One of my neighbors recently told me that they didn’t have a problem with “the gays”, they just wouldn’t vote for one of them or their causes. Whoops! He adores his representation; HD2 and SD31. He doesn’t know and I didn’t tell him. Let him vote for broader policies and the people they are.
Why don’t they come out and campaign on their real agenda; destroying heterosexial marriage and turning your scouts gay!
I live in Boulder, and I moved here partly because the community is pretty liberal. It got annoying to be the only lefty sitting in a bar while the bartender is making racist jokes with the regular customers.
You could make Boulder competitive, perhaps by forming a district that stretches from just east of Broadway down through Golden and extending through along the median of some highways to the western half of Colorado Springs, but what would be the point? How would my views get represented in Congress? How would an average Springs resident get represented?
Districts are supposed to be compact and have something to do with natural boundaries, precisely so that people in Boulder or Denver or Colorado Springs, who tend to have interests in common with each other, can have their views represented.
It sounds like the rest of you want a bunch of conservative Democrats running against nearly indistinguishable conservative Republicans so that your conservative views are represented in Congress, with each election being essentially randomly decided since the two politicians will be far too cowardly to take a stand that might alienate the tiny number of swing voters who are the only ones who matter. Milquetoast uber alles! Then we can just focus on the horserace aspects every year instead of ever talking about substance! Joy!
Political opinions in this state (and almost every other state) are not uniformly distributed spatially. The liberals live in one place, the conservatives live in another place. Rural voters are different from urban voters. That’s not a bad thing. Districts should reflect that.
But safe districts can also give you reps like Lamborn who never do anything and vote as Club for Growth directs him. Or imagine Marilyn Musgrave in a seat that was truly safe.
We don’t have to make every district 50/50. But if they were all 54/46 then the reps would need to work to retain their seats. And they would need to appeal to at least a chunk of people in the middle.
and there’s no good reason why everybody in Congress or in the Senate should be in “the middle.” Especially in American politics “the middle” is frequently used to refer to not having terribly strong opinions about anything. Those people are easily corrupted and rarely stand up for anything. I’d rather have Polis and Lamborn than seven Salazars.
You live in Boulder so you don’t have to listen to racist comments. Nice. The rest of us deal with the world the way it is. Salazar did some things I totally disagreed with (Bankruptcy bill, e.g.). He did some things I admired (Health Care Reform, e.g.). I never thought of him as anything but hardworking and honest, even when I disagreed. Lamborn is a joke. I don’t want to get into it over Polis. If you want to have respect, you have to show respect.
get the fuck over it.
But I’m over it.
Salazar represented my district, not yours. Easy for you to be the peanut gallery. A lot harder to live in CD3.
said better than I would.
I think communities of shared interests are important, and–obviously–some balance in population. Those things being taken care of, competitiveness is a good thing to consider, but the other two more so–IMO.
Is that there isn’t much diversity here. Not of opinion, not of race, not of economic background. It’s mostly well off white liberals all busy agreeing with each other.
That’s both boring and tends to get people locked in to their opinions. I’d much rather discuss issues with people I disagree with – that challenging & interesting.
is more ethically and politically diverse. Can swing in a hotly contested race.
only that if Dave likes engaging with folks he disagrees with it might be an option.
It was snark, really. I think Boulder is primarily a town of privilege and not very diverse, especially economically.
Had an opportunity many years ago to move there and passed, on purpose. If I wanted to live in a diverse smaller city, I’d pick Fort Collins.
Look at minority counts in the census before guessing which cities are ethnically diverse.
As for ethically diverse, that is an interesting concept.
I mean, diverse, in all ways, shapes and forms. You dig Boulder? Move there. More power to ya.
You could have also said GJ – on any given day I can talk with someone who disagrees with me but we are economically diverse. Boulder, I agree, is not.
Boulder wasn’t always an expensive place to buy a house.
It’s quite different now, of course. But find the folks that bought a brick ranch 30 years ago and you’ll find a lot more economic diversity than most people credit this town for.
I can understand people disliking Boulder for the reasons you state, but to some extent this sort of thing is true of many cities. Does Boulder not have a right to be represented by a liberal Democrat because you find liberal Democrats annoying? I supported Betsy Markey’s election in Fort Collins, but it would have been really disappointing if she’d been the representative from CD-2. Even with Polis there is plenty to disagree on, but I’m glad he’s out in front on the wars and on civil rights and on a number of other issues.
Boulder still has competitive elections, but they’re primary elections. I have yet to hear you or anyone else on this thread say why that’s such a bad thing. Some areas are conservative, some are liberal. Should we start busing conservatives into Boulder so you can have an argument with someone other than me, or so you have a local election whose outcome you can bet on? Those things aren’t worth much to me, and probably to most other Boulder residents. And I suspect the same is true for most people who live in communities where they’re happy to agree with their neighbors.
First, totally outside of elections, just in general discussion that occurs in this community, I wish there was a lot more breadth. I’d really like a lot more diversity in the conversations and backgrounds of regular conversation here. (And I do know I’m in the minority on this – most people like discussing issues with people from similar backgrounds that agree with them – that’s why FOX and MSNBC are successful.)
In terms of who we have representing us, yes liberals should have a voice in Congress as should conservatives. But the third of the electorate in the middle deserves a voice too.
And I don’t like a system that let’s candidates phone it in. No one is going to challenge a sitting rep in a primary. If they do, they’ll lose except for very unusual circumstances. So the only way to make the rep sell themselves each election is to make it competitive.
as long as they aren’t spouting Fox or Rush talking points that they harvest to avoid learning something.
Libertad would be fun and I’m sure I would learn. That lying clown who is a grad TA at CSU is a joke, but nothing fun there. No knowledge there. No there there.
There are two problems with your first point.
1) In many regions in the country and in particular Colorado, it is not true that a third of the population is in the middle. Many regions have a pretty strong leaning one way or the other. You would have to completely violate natural boundaries in order to draw districts which respect the statewide party distribution. The courts have all ruled this is illegal.
2) The centrists already have their views represented in swing districts, but that doesn’t mean EVERY district should be a swing district. The likely consequence of this would be that virtually EVERY district would be represented by a centrist sort of candidate, and us radicals would have virtually NO representation. (There would be exceptions like Wellstone, I grant you, but even in the Senate it’s rare that the most liberal or conservative of Senators comes from a swing state. I’m not sure someone like Wellstone could get elected in Minnesota today.)
As for your second point, that’s true even in competitive districts in general elections: incumbents tend to win except in extraordinary circumstances. Wave elections like 2006 or 2010 are still pretty rare, and those happened because things had gone to shit in various ways. Just having 1/3 of each party affiliation does not destroy an incumbent’s huge advantage.
represented as those centrist independents is an average that comes from not only lumping American Constitution Party and Green Party members together as a group, but truly independent minded people with varied beliefs: an environmentalist, atheist, pro-military hunter and a pro-life catholic civil libertarian librarian might add up to a stereotypical democrat and republican if you stick them in a blender and sift the pieces.
It’s unfortunate that politicians have taken to synthesizing positions that conform to a statistical average in order to appeal to the “middle”. We really shouldn’t be encouraging them in that.
The 3rd CD is a mix of urban and rural. Not urban in the Denver, Front Range sense but from a business, agriculture, environmental activist mix. The big problem with the 3rd CD is the land mass and only those that can serve tirelessly are going to survive.
In the last election it was John Salazar’s to loose. He did because in large part I think he got tired of all of the travel and diverse demands of his constituents. I can’t totally credit the tea party movement on that congressional seat going to Tipton.
Salazar lost the race. Tipton will have to actually win it this next cycle.
On finding a decent candidate to oppose him.
You can’t replace somebody with nobody.
Please announce soon Ralphie…
Tipton: says something.
Ralphie: You’re full of shit.
Tipton: says something else.
Ralphie: You’re full of shit.
Tipton thinks his district has more ‘oil’ than Saudi Arabia. He’s in yet another fish wrapper saying it. And he wants to poke cows, or gore oxen, or something.