July 01, 2026 02:24 PM UTC

Hickenlooper Triumph Defies Colorado's Leftward Lurch

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Chase Woodruff reports for Colorado Newsline, although last night’s elections saw some left-leaning challengers do well, most notably Melat Kiros’ ouster of longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in Denver, at the top of the Democratic primary ticket, a candidate who has defined Democratic politics in this state for over two decades triumphed in what is expected to be his final political campaign:

Incumbent U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper secured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate Tuesday night, holding off a primary challenge from state Sen. Julie Gonzales in an election largely defined by Hickenlooper’s absence from the campaign trail…

Gonzales, a progressive leader in the General Assembly since 2019, launched her campaign late last year. After Hickenlooper skipped the Colorado Democratic Party’s March assembly process, opting to qualify for the primary ballot through petition signatures instead, Gonzales took the top spot in the party’s statewide assembly with 74% support.

But her campaign struggled to overcome Hickenlooper’s massive fundraising advantage, collecting just over $869,000 in contributions through June 10, compared to Hickenlooper’s $7.7 million. His campaign used that financial firepower to fund a barrage of TV and digital ads touting his plans for “fighting Donald Trump’s cruelty and turning the page on his chaos.”

As the Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi reports, the key to Sen. John Hickenlooper’s cruise to victory on a night that saw other longtime Democratic incumbents lose their races was Hickenlooper’s dominance outside the Denver metro area, though even in Denver proper Hickenlooper’s powerful name recognition kept him strongly competitive:

By highlighting his progressive accomplishments while at the same time staying true to his centrist leanings, Hickenlooper was able to successfully thread the needle.

Hickenlooper and Gonzales split the vote in Denver, the home base of each candidate. Hickenlooper, however, maintained a double-digit lead across most of the rest of the state, except for Adams County and some counties in southern Colorado, where his lead was in the single digits.

By contrast, state Sen. Julie Gonzales made little attempt to campaign beyond Denver, and didn’t have anywhere near the financial resources to match Hickenlooper’s saturation ad buys in all of the state’s media markets. We were somewhat controversially firm in our now-vindicated assessment from the beginning that Gonzales had little chance of unseating one of the state’s most legendary Democratic incumbents, before the explosive insurgent campaign of Melat Kiros upended the electoral math in at least Denver, with possible spillover energy in other locations around the state.

So why didn’t Julie Gonzales catch the anti-incumbent wave? It’s true that Gonzales was ill-equipped to capitalize on the shifting political climate with her limited resources in a statewide race. But just as important, Hickenlooper’s strength shows the limits of the anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the country right now. The disaffection felt by many Democratic Party activists toward their own leadership, particularly in solidly blue urban areas like Denver, isn’t as intense in more politically diverse parts of the state. Where Democratic voters still have some exposure to conservative politics, the distinction between friend and foe is clearer–and the results in primary elections reflect that. And even in Denver, where the iconoclastic sentiment was at its greatest, Hickenlooper stayed competitive due to his deep community ties as the former mayor.

Beyond that, it all comes back to John Hickenlooper’s enduring popularity which transcends short-term swings in the polls, a brand that Democratic voters understand with all its caveats and compromises and still trust even after hearing all the opposition talking points. Whatever criticisms one has of Hickenlooper on a policy level, and basically everyone has one, his personal authenticity and approachability create space for voters to agree to disagree–and stay in Hick’s coalition.

Years after Sen. Hickenlooper has left Colorado politics, future would-be leaders who want to succeed will study how he did.