November 07, 2023 01:33 PM UTC

Election 2023: What to Watch For Tonight

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #4: In Colorado, Prop. HH is losing and Prop. II is winning — both by fairly significant margins.

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UPDATE #3: By wide margins, voters in Ohio approve a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution…AND say ‘YES’ to legalizing marijuana.

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UPDATE #2: Big news to start the night for Democrats. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is expected to win re-election in Kentucky, which has long been a red state.

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UPDATE: The Colorado Secretary of State’s office just released new ballot return numbers, and it looks like we’ve had quite a jump since Sunday evening:

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Today is November 7, but more importantly in political and election worlds, it is the first Tuesday in November. You know what that means: Election Day!

Remember: If you haven’t voted yet, you need to take your completed ballot to a verified drop box. Go to GoVoteColorado.com for more information. 

Here’s what we’ll be watching for tonight as ballot return numbers start to become available. Keep in mind that turnout in Colorado looks to be lower than usual, so any evaluations should be considered with that particular grain of salt.

Colorado (Statewide)

We should get a significant chunk of results pretty quickly after polls close at 7:00 pm. There are only two statewide questions on the ballot in 2023: Proposition HH and Proposition II (the letter “i”).

We won’t get into details again about Prop. HH, but you can read more in a previous Pols post or from The Denver Post. As for Prop II, this is a pretty simple: Can Colorado keep excess revenue collected from a tobacco tax that voters already approved in 2020.

The results of Prop. HH will get most of the coverage tonight and in days to come. Republicans in Colorado are opposing HH, though they clearly don’t really know why. Meanwhile, most of the newspapers in the state have joined with Democrats in support of Prop. HH, in part because nobody has a better idea for how to deal with rising property tax rates driven by market forces.

There hasn’t been much of a campaign promoting Prop. HH, and spending/revenue measures like this have generally fallen to the off-year election curse in Colorado. It won’t be a huge surprise, then, if Prop. HH fails.

But for those reasons and others, it will be YUGE news if Prop. HH manages to pass. Colorado voters have been backing Democrats in significant numbers in recent years, and they have also shown more of a tendency to support new spending measures on the ballot. If Prop. HH can pass in Colorado without much of a campaign pushing it forward, it will be a major proof point heading into 2024 of yet another repudiation of right-wing politics.

Colorado (Local)

There are a lot of local races worth watching tonight — too many to name, in fact. But here’s where we’ll be looking first:

♦ Aurora Mayor
Career politician Mike Coffman is running for re-election after having to ditch his ill-conceived plans for a new “strong mayor” form of government in Aurora. Coffman’s “strong mayor” debacle was such a disaster, in fact, that it may well cost him another term. Democrats unified behind City Council Member Juan Marcano in order to focus on taking down Coffman, who has been working for years to install an idiot-filled government dominated by Republicans in Colorado’s third-largest city.

A Coffman loss would be another blow to Republicans who have been turning their attention to smaller races as they find themselves unable to compete with Democrats statewide. It might also finally signal the end of elected office for Coffman, who has been on the public dole almost every year since first winning election to the state legislature in 1989 (Democrat Jason Crow ended Coffman’s previous streak with a blowout victory over the then-incumbent Congressman in 2018).

♦ Thornton Mayor
Republican Jan Kulmann is seeking re-election just a year after losing her bid for the Republican nomination for Congress in CO-08. Kulmann claims to have “hated” running for Congress in 2022, but there’s been plenty of speculation that she is still eyeing a move up the political ladder at some point. City Council Member Julia Marvin, a Democrat, hopes to make Kulmann a one-term Mayor.

♦ Lakewood Mayor
The City of Lakewood needs a new leader to replace the term-limited Adam Paul. City Council Member Wendy Strom has the backing of prominent Democrats, while Republicans hope to boost Don Burkhart. A third candidate, Cathy Kentner, is a strong proponent of Lakewood’s controversial growth cap (which was repealed by the City Council earlier this year after growth caps were overturned by the state )

♦ Pueblo Mayor
Incumbent Mayor Nick Gradisar is running against a relatively-large field of candidates for re-election. Challengers Chris Nicoll and Regina Maestri are connected to the anti-abortion group “Forging the Future,” which was involved in the failed attempt to pass an abortion ban in Pueblo last December.

Conservatives are divided among several competing candidates in Pueblo, including Randy Thurston, who boasts the support of failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl. We probably wouldn’t be touting Ganahl’s backing after she was shellacked a year ago by Gov. Jared Polis, but we’ll see if this plays well in Pueblo.

♦ Boulder Mayor
This race is interesting primarily because it is Boulder’s first experiment with ranked-choice voting. Boulder’s Mayor also used to be selected by a vote of the city council, so there are lots of new aspects with this election cycle.

♦ School Board Races and Issues
There are a number of interesting races for school board around the state. Eight candidates are running for three open seats in Denver. A Christian group called “Forging the Future” is trying to capture several seats in Pueblo. Two seats are up for grabs in Jefferson County, and voters in Woodland Park are hoping to oust a couple of right-wing extremists who are using the district as a test case for the absurd American Birthright curriculum.

An at-large candidate in Englewood just turned himself into police on Monday on a warrant for aggravated car theft, but Davon Williams is running unopposed.

There’s also an important bond issue for school funding in Douglas County that is being closely watched by educators.

National Races

♦ Kentucky Governor
Democrat Andy Beshear is seeking a second term in what has been a traditionally-red state. Republicans hope Daniel Cameron can defeat the incumbent so that the GOP can make inferences about the 2024 election cycle.

♦ Mississippi Governor
Republican Tate Reeves is hoping voters ignore his long record of corruption and select him over Democrat Brandon Presley in what is expected to be the tightest Mississippi governor’s race in decades. Fun fact: Presley is a cousin of Elvis Presley.

♦ Virginia Legislature
Every seat in the Virginia legislature is up for grabs in 2023. Both Democrats and Republicans are spending like drunken sailors as they attempt to gain an advantage in a legislature currently split by one seat in each chamber. If Democrats can gain full control of the legislature, it would mark a significant victory for abortion rights and would be a major blow to the future political aspirations of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

♦ Abortion Access in Ohio
The big story in Ohio is about Issue 1, which seeks to enshrine the right to abortion access in the state constitution. Republicans tried to make it harder for Issue 1 to pass today with a failed ballot measure in August that would have made it more difficult for voters to amend the state constitution.

Did we miss something important? Almost certainly! Let us know in the comments below…