President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
52%↑
48%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 13, 2008 08:52 PM UTC
28 Comments
Will Ramey Johnson be facing off with Gwen Green again in H.D. 23? Maybe this time, Bob Schaffer will be too preoccupied with his own race to sabotage Johnson’s?
HD-26’s Andy Kerr apparently also has a challenger.
“Strong” may refer to something other than the potential of the candidate to be competitive in these races.
I’ve heard the rumors re: a Green Opponent. However, staying in the closet, not filing and refusing to answer at the Republic County Offices doesn’t demonstrate a lot of strength. Especially against a very popular feisty Rep like Gwyn “Fighting Granny” Green. Will they hide under the basket until October?
The other rumor is that Lakewood Councilor Vicki Stack is taking on Betty Boyd. That one should be downright comical. I hope to see many debates and joint appearances. Check out Stack at Lakewood.Org for her obtuse questions that routinely flummox Lakewood staff trying to figure out just what she might be talking about.
I don’t think Betty Boyd is up this year, is she? Didn’t she run in ’06?
so has to run again on a short cycle.
Boyd was appointed to fill out the rest of Deanna Hanna’s term after Hanna resigned following a fund-raising scandal. Because Hanna was elected in 04, Boyd had to stand for election in 06 for just the remaining two years of Hanna’s term. She is now seeking her first four-year term, after which she will be term limited.
Boyd is one of the hardest working campaigners I know, and defeated a formidable R last time, Republican Rep. Matt Knoedler:
From my 06 file: Another key contest in Jefferson County was Democrat Betty Boyd
against Republican Matt Knoedler.
Boyd was appointed in March after Deanna Hanna resigned in an ethics scandal. Hanna sent a letter asking the Colorado Association of Realtors’ political action committee to pay her $1,400 in
“reparations” after the group endorsed her opponent in the 2004 elections.
Boyd, a Lakewood resident, served six years in the Colorado legislature, first as a representative and chairwoman of the House
Health and Human Services Committee, and later as a senator.
On the campaign trail, Boyd emphasized health care, including
improving access to affordable prescriptions.
Knoedler focused on school accountability and immigration reform,
including prohibiting illegal immigrants from obtaining nonemergency public services
Result: District 21
Matt Knoedler (R) 17,645….43.6%
Betty Boyd (D) 22,784….56.4%
.
Yes Boyd is one of the hardest working campaigners around but Knoedler worked at least as hard. As I remember Knoedler left his house seat on the urging of the party then as the general neared was hung out to dry as party resources were directed to other races. I think it might have been a close race. At this point, however, I can’t see a credible challenge to Betty.
In noting Boyd hard work, I didn’t mean to slight Knoedler. He was one of the stars of the 2004 Republican class, recruited for an open seat and pretty much hung out to dry. If memory serves, more of Boyd’s old house seat was in the Senate district than Knoedler and she had almost 6 years House service to Knoedler’s two _ plus 8 months of appointed Senate incumbency. He worked as hard as she did, but offsetting Boyd’s familiarity with voters would have required more resources than the GOP was ble to give. By the way, Vikki Stack is a hard worker too, I watched her campaign in Lakewood. But by now, Boyd has had three years to homestead her Senate district. And Stack’s credentials are slimmer than Knoedler’s. My Republican spies do dream of taking back the Senate this year but none of them has identified Boyd as a likely target.
Why does that name ring familiar? She’s more of a Doug Bruce Republican who objects to all things government right?
This afternoon, Vicki Stack showed up on the SOS list as having filed for SD-21.
Let the fun begin!
about this being the rubber match if it really does pit Kefalas v. McCluskey again.
cCluskey was a leading R moderate and Ref C backer. This will be a top race to watch.
Stack suffered losses in Lakewood twice before winning on her third try when two more progressive candidates split the vote.
She’s used to losing and could just establish her credentials when SD-21 becomes an open seat and she is close to her term limit in Lakewood.
though I would note that in Lakewood, “progressive” basically means aligned with the business community and moderate enviros advocating trails and open space. Stack is more closely aligned with Libertarian Doug Anderson, who served a term as a Denver election commissioner before moving to Lakewood.
You have to get a committee filed with the SOS if you want to raise funds.
Waiting means that candidates will have zero COH on day one, except donations from a few pre-arranged day one contributors (such as statewide party money). A nice theory, but in practice, fundraisers want cold hard cash as soon as possible, because mere pledges sometimes fail to materialize. This has to measure up against sometimes substantial incubment war chests, in a year when GOP fundraising generally has been subpar.
The other problem is that delay reduces the time available to build name awareness, which is key when one is running against an incumbent (as in five of the races cited above) or a famous candidate (like Morgan Carroll) in an open race.
And, the ballot access clock is ticking. Caucus process nominations mostly need to be in place before the end of March, and, generally, you need to have candidates seeking that type of nomination need to go public by the county assembly date to get either a nomination or delegates to a multi-county assembly from the county.
The candidate petition window this year is March 31-May 29. One has to get on the primary ballot to get on the general election ballot with a major party, and there isn’t much time left to take that step, and one usually needs time to fill that petition, so one has to start as early as feasible.
I have a hard time buying the “opposition research” theory, because in the age of Google that can happen very, very fast. Consider the case of Spitzer’s mistress. She was identified by current name and birth name, within a couple of days of the announcement that he was implicated, and they also had her mother’s name (and an interview with her mother) and every place she had lived in the past five years.
The basics of opposition research play out over a couple of weeks, not several calendar quarters.
To the extent this rumor is true, it also means that the GOP won’t be running a “50 state strategy” in Colorado. This frees up Democrats to focus more resources on targeted race and also immunizes candidates in uncontested races from all but the most severe cases (compare the case of Republican County Clerk Tracy Baker in Araphahoe County who won despite having a widely known sex/sexual harassment scandal because there was no major party opposition).
A lame excuse for the fact that they’re having trouble getting candidates even for seats that are very competitive.
The Colorado GOP is in really sad shape and this shows it better than anything. They’re putting it all on Schaffer not because they made a choice to do so, but because he’s all they got.
Katie Witt, former Boulder County Commissioner candidate and Colorado State Political Director for Governor Romney, has announced against Brandon Shaffer
I wouldn’t file it under “keep an eye on this one …”
I would suspect that after her state-wide involvement with Governor Romney’s winning campaign, she’ll have made enough good contacts to be well funded and get plenty of help.
Uphill battle, absolutely. But a slam dunk for Shaffer? I think not.
Ex-rep. Bob McCluskey has filed papers against John Kefalas in Fort Collins. Has anyone decided to take on Riesberg in Greeley?
Some “Christian fiction” author is taking the plunge against Randy Fischer in Fort Collins: http://www.donnagallup.org/
A losing city council candidate has announced against Bob Bacon.
it has always suprised me how little attention this seat gets because it is so close. Kefalas v. McCluskey sounds familiar..3rd time now? This is my district, and I was a little surprised Kefalas won because he is pretty liberal. I like the guy, hope he wins again. Fischer will be fine, HD-53 isn’t really a problem, Anne Yeldell thought she was amazing and had good organization and following and still got her butt kicked.
Bacon will also be fine, SD-14 is historically Democratic, and he is such a cute old man!
Heres to all 3 ft collins seats staying in Democratic hands!
McCluskey lost a tight district in 2006 because Beauprez was such a bozo and because a number of former R elected officials held a presser on the courthouse lawn to endorse Ritter. McCluskey will win this year. McCain and Schaffer will help. Ft. Collins needs some business sense and leadership under the golden dome, and McCluskey has that. Kefalas doesn’t. Bacon has a problem with the illegal campaigning he did throughout the school district in 2004 using school district resources. I don’t much about Bacon’s opponent, but Bacon will have some tough questions to answer about campaign ethics. Don’t forget, when he was on the school board, he sued the charter school started in part by …. Bob Schaffer. I’m not sure why Bacon is running again. Maybe there’s no one else to run? Peggy Reeves can’t run and try to reclaim her seat after term limits because she was on the board of NORLARCO, and that’s pretty much a campaign buzz kill.
You got Fischer right.
Probably.
The folks in Fort Collins liked Bob Bacon so much that they named a frickin’ school after the guy!!! If you’re depending on allegations from 2004 to bury Bacon, keep on dreaming. They love Sen. Bacon up there!
That seat leans Dem but not by much. It’s got a lot of people outside of the People’s Republic and a Repub could be very competitive.
No Ramey Johnson. She was not there. It was a long, long day to get a candidate. I was there and at first there was an older retired gentleman named Bob Gordon who was going to run. Then something about his law practice came up that occurred 25 years ago. He was vague about what happened, but there were doubters. Then a young man nominated another young man named Kaile Higginson. Kaile then was questioned for about 20 minutes. Then Bob was Questioned. After a long wait, we voted and Kaile won with 73%. I know very little about him and it seemed like very few know him.