Some Thoughts on a Possible Big Primary Upset(s) in Colorado

We’ve got more primaries coming up tomorrow night, specifically in the state of Colorado. I must confess that it was only in the last couple days that I realized that incumbent Senator John Hickenlooper (D), the former Mayor of Denver and Governor of Colorado, stands a real chance of going down to defeat. Needless to say that would be a very big deal since incumbent Senators, or at least incumbent Democratic senators, all but never have that happen. Sen. Bennet (D), who is trying to become the nominee for Governor as well as Rep. Diana DeGette, might also be toast. But it’s Hickenlooper who I want to focus on here. Bennet is running against state AG Phil Weiser whose politics aren’t that distinguishable from Bennet’s; he’s challenging Bennet on the “fight” front. DeGette is being challenging by Melat Kiros, a more questionable figure. But that’s the House and it’s an overwhelmingly Democratic district. Again, I want to focus on Hickenlooper because that has more properly national implications. (To get a detailed rundown of all the races in Colorado here’s a good piece at The Downballot.) I had not heard much about this primary. And I was a bit taken aback when I heard that Hickenlooper is in real danger. It’s certainly possible he’ll cruise to renomination. But a mid-May poll showed him ahead of state Sen. Julie Gonzales 41% to 34%. That’s a non-trivial margin. But for a longtime incumbent in a volatile political year that’s a big warning sign, not simply because of the small margin but because of the vast numbers of undecides in a race featuring perhaps the biggest Democratic institution in Colorado politics. Meanwhile Politico reports today that a Democratic strategist they interviewed had seen a private poll that shows the two in a dead heat. As I said, these numbers are certainly compatible with Hickenlooper winning. But the energy this year is all on the “fight” side and strongly anti-incumbent. So I would not be shocked to see Gonzales win and for it not even to be that close. My own reaction to this news was interesting to me. When I hear about an incumbent in trouble like this my own first instinct is wariness or apprehension. That’s not because I’m so crazy about incumbents in general. It’s mostly because I go in with a concern that an insurgent from the left may not be able to win the general. At a certain level it’s probably just reflex, and then I remind myself, well … you’re concerned that the new person might not be able to win the general. Here though it’s probably fair to say that Colorado is no longer really a purple state. It’s swung about as hard to the left as … say, Iowa has to the right. So I think you’d have to be a pretty bad candidate and/or a pretty big extremist as a Democrat to lose a general election this year. And Gonzales doesn’t seem like either. As I was thinking this, and examining the bases of my own reflexes, however, it occurred to me: what will it take for you, Josh, to embrace your own advocacy? Let me explain. Hickenlooper is 74 and says this new term he’s running for will be his last. He’s been in office almost continuously since he was elected Mayor of Denver in 2003. He served two terms as Mayor and as Governor. He seems like a very solid guy. I’m sure I’d like him. But it’s my strong impression that he is very much in the camp of Democratic senators who don’t want to do any of the big necessary things: abolish the filibuster, reform the Supreme Court, fight against encroaching autocracy as opposed to preserve decorum and regular order. In other words, he’s approaching the senate gig as though we were still in the 1990s or perhaps the W era. To listen to my own oft-repeated arguments, he is the problem. And as I argued a few days ago, this is the kind of thing that has Democratic primary voters on fire now. They want fight. Gonzales mostly but not entirely fits the mold of other progressive insurgents around the country. I’ve just been reading up on her now and she appears to have worked in Democratic politics and immigration legal work for most of her adult life before being elected to the state senate from a district in Denver in 2018. She’s currently the senate majority whip and she’s had various positions in the state Democratic party. So while she has the standard Sanders/progressive list of positions: Medicare for All, Abolish ICE, etc. you can’t say she’s some kind of outsider wrecker. She’s part of the Democratic party establishment in the state, albeit clearly on its left wing. Notably, she was a DSA member from 2018 until last year when she appears to have allowed her membership to lapse, seemingly (though she doesn’t say this explicitly) to remove a potential complication for her run against Hickenlooper, at least for some higher office. As I said, we’ll see what happens tomorrow night. But if this happens it will be a true earthquake in the nation’s politics, far more than a House race in the Outer Boroughs of New York or Washington Heights. As I was hitting “publish” on this post I noticed a New York Times email flagging a new article about the Colorado primaries with the subject line “Will left-wing energy keep rising in Colorado?” As I argued on Friday, I think this mischaracterizes or misunderstandings the dynamic. This isn’t mostly about ideology or policy (at least in the senate and governor’s races; the DeGette-Kiros race may be slightly different). It’s about fight. That’s certainly the case in the gubernatorial primary and I think largely in the senate one as well. But it’s on the left of the party – in Gonzales’s case – where voters are finding it. So that’s where they’re going.