November 05, 2014 08:21 AM UTC

Hickenlooper Survives 2014 Democratic Bloodbath

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: In a message to supporters a short while ago, Republican Bob Beauprez concedes defeat:

This is a different message to share with you than we had hoped. We have been watching the results as votes continue to be counted and unfortunately at this point, even with a handful of counties still reporting, there just aren't enough options to get us across the finish line.

I just spoke with Governor Hickenlooper. We had a good conversation and I congratulated him on a hard fought race.

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Moments ago, The Denver Post called the Colorado gubernatorial race for incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper:

Gov. John Hickenlooper is projected to hold his office, according to calculations by The Denver Post on Wednesday morning.

With 93 percent of votes counted as of about 7:20 a.m., Hickenlooper is leading Bob Beauprez, a Republican, by roughly 22,000 votes. Votes are still being tallied in predominantly Democratic Boulder and Denver counties.

Hickenlooper holds 48.3 percent of the vote while Beauprez is trailing with 47.1 percent.

As Election Day turned to Wednesday, Democratic strongholds in Denver and Boulder still had tens of thousands of votes left to count. Swing-state counties and GOP holdouts, meanwhile, had far fewer ballots left for Beauprez to make gains.

Outgoing GOP Secretary of State Scott Gessler says in this story there is a "strong likelihood" of a recount, but at present that would not be automatic: it would be up to Bob Beauprez's campaign to pay for it unless the margin drops to under half a percent. While we wouldn't put that past Beauprez, the numbers just don't appear to be there for a recount to close the margin.

With Hickenlooper's apparent narrow victory over Beauprez, along with the defeat of both 2013 Republican recall election winners by Democrats in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, there's an interesting sidenote forming to what was undeniably a terrible night for Democrats in Colorado and across the nation. We have a lot of analysis coming on this election, but we'll start our readers off this Wednesday morning with an observation: that the gun lobby, for all of their agitation over the past two years, didn't factor much last night.

On a day when many, many Republican votes are cast, Beauprez's defeat after another of his now-trademark over-the-top negative campaigns is a repudiation of that style of politics as well–in stark contrast to the indestructible beatific grin that helped Cory Gardner become our state's junior U.S. Senator. It's very clear that campaign tactics in Colorado are going to change after this election on both sides; and we would regard the universal disavowal of blatant mendacious fearmongering in our politics as a positive development.

And congratulations to Gov. Hickenlooper, perhaps the happiest Democrat in America today.