November 27, 2009 05:12 PM UTC

Denver Line Needs Updating

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• by: Dan Willis

The dynamics of many of these races have changed since the last time the Denver Line was updated.

Below the fold is my take on where these races are going.

HD’s 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9 and SD’s 31, 32, and 33 are all safe for the current incumbents. (SD35 is not up this time).

HD3 (South Central Denver, 1/3 of the voters are in Arapahoe County) – I am told Christine Mastin (R) has a lot of money to throw at this race and is the first serious attempt by the GOP to take this seat in quite some time. Daniel Kagan (D), the incumbent, is a recent vacancy-appointment so it is almost an open seat. Luckily for the Dems, Daniel is a good campaigner.

The remainder of the heavily contested districts are in the northern half of Denver where the GOP just doesn’t have any game. In all of these races the Dem. primary is the election.

HD4 (NW Denver, roughly north of 6th & west of Federal) – there is a third candidate filed, Amber Tafoya, but I dont know how serious of a challenge she is. I am told Dan Pabon has made serious strides in sewing up a sole nomionation at next April’s assembly. Jennifer Coken’s strength will be the election itself. She is a hard-core campaigner, but navagating the nomination process is her biggest obstacle.

HD5 (North central Denver including core of Cap Hill, downtown and Globeville/Elyria/Swansea) – There are 3 filed Dem. candidates so far: Jose Silva, Mark Thrun, and John Swinotek. There is also the more talked about unfiled maybe candidate: Crisanta Duran. I have not seen any of them campaign yet, so maybe someone from HD5 could jump in with their views. Swinotek, by the way, was the GOP candidate in 2008, I would expect assembly goers to be a little leery of that.

HD7 (NE Denver: Montclair, Stapleton, Montebello and Green Valley Ranch) – We’re up to 4 filed candidates: Mark Mehringer, Angela Williams, Jon Goldin-DuBois, and Blake Harrison. Angela has really been working it and is backed by a lot of local Dem-establishment types. Mark is well-known within the party on a larger level (he was the former GOTV Chair for the county) and his targeting skills are well-honed. Jon I honestly know nothing about, but Blake is dividing his attentions between his race and a ballot issue he is sheperding through the process.

HD34 (NW Denver – core is HD4 but spreads further south and east) – A 3-way between two term-limited State Reps (Jerry Frangas and Joel Judd) and one term-limited Denver School Board member (Lucia Guzman). I would expect the primary to be between Frangas and Guzman. Judd’s HD is only a small sliver of the SD. It is a heavily Latino district, so their views on the topics related to that population, and their ability to campaign, will dictate this race.

HD3 is only one of these races to have an incumbent running, the rest were all term-limited. The exiting incumbents are:

HD4 – Jerry Frangas

HD5 – Joel Judd

HD7 – Terrance Carroll

SD34 – Paula Snadoval