CO-SEN Megathread: Cory In The House

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I wouldn't rule out a run by either Hick or Duran at this point. After all, if early declarations and intentions were binding then Perlmutter would be in retirement now.

But yes, surprising and disappointing decision. I get that she may have a higher local profile than statewide (as high as you can expect for a state senator at least) but she'd be a good candidate for Senate and Gardner is as wounded as they come.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bennet got a cabinet appointment in a Democratic administration (Secretary of Education maybe) so maybe if a Democrat wins in 2020 Polis could appoint her to an open seat.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Can anyone with experience/knowledge of CO politics explain why any decent democrats aren't jumping into the field?

Senate races are nearly always the easiest to recruit for, and whilst I know absolute no-name state senators can win, it just seems strange.

Do you have someone in mind who should be jumping in? Besides Hickenlooper (explainable) and Duran (beyond explanation) I'm not sure who else Democrats would be salivating over who should be declaring.

Also Zaybay's explanation is spot on. It's also March of 2019. Once the primary is over the party is going to unify against whoever wins and the GE will be relatively easy for anybody who is able to put on their pants/skirt correctly. There's no need to declare early and build a ton of recognition/campaign infrastructure unless you're a true nobody.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Can anyone with experience/knowledge of CO politics explain why any decent democrats aren't jumping into the field?

Senate races are nearly always the easiest to recruit for, and whilst I know absolute no-name state senators can win, it just seems strange.

Do you have someone in mind who should be jumping in? Besides Hickenlooper (explainable) and Duran (beyond explanation) I'm not sure who else Democrats would be salivating over who should be declaring.

Thoughts on Joseph Neguse?

I expect Neguse will run and unless Hickenlooper jumps into the race (conceivable if there isn't a favorite candidate) he has a pretty decent shot. Actually with Hickenlooper in the race Neguse would still probably have a good shot even if he wasn't odds-on favorite. CO-02 is a revolving door of more left-leaning candidates jumping into higher office (Udall and Polis).

That said it's pretty bad optics for someone who has been serving in the House for two months to declare candidacy for higher office. If he declares it won't be until later in the year and we'll hear some rumblings about it before it happens.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Can anyone with experience/knowledge of CO politics explain why any decent democrats aren't jumping into the field?

Senate races are nearly always the easiest to recruit for, and whilst I know absolute no-name state senators can win, it just seems strange.

Do you have someone in mind who should be jumping in? Besides Hickenlooper (explainable) and Duran (beyond explanation) I'm not sure who else Democrats would be salivating over who should be declaring.

Thoughts on Joseph Neguse?

I expect Neguse will run and unless Hickenlooper jumps into the race (conceivable if there isn't a favorite candidate) he has a pretty decent shot. Actually with Hickenlooper in the race Neguse would still probably have a good shot even if he wasn't odds-on favorite. CO-02 is a revolving door of more left-leaning candidates jumping into higher office (Udall and Polis).

Appreciate the on-the-ground report - I'm very impressed by Neguse's tenure thus far and would love to see him run, hopefully in coordination (i.e. a two-way endorsement announced sometime later in the year) with the Sanders campaign.

That said it's pretty bad optics for someone who has been serving in the House for two months to declare candidacy for higher office. If he declares it won't be until later in the year and we'll hear some rumblings about it before it happens.

I think that's fair and probably explains his reluctance to jump in right away if he indeed intends to run, though admittedly I think these standard political conventions are being rendered less and less relevant with every passing year.

Should clarify here that I don't have any particular insight from living here (I'm busy with work and my work has nothing to do with state politics), but Neguse is like a dream candidate for Democrats. Incredibly young progressive with an inspirational back story and roots in Boulder for all of his adult life. Racial diversity is a really hot issue for Colorado liberals outside of Denver and SoCO (not that there are many liberals left in SoCO at this point) because those areas lack it so clearly - being represented by an Eritrean refugee is would be like a weird form of woke validation to these people. The only other person anywhere near a position of power like that is Duran who inexplicably isn't running. It would be really intriguing to see a Duran-Neguse primary but I don't think the state party wants to see these two wear each other down.

With all that said Neguse's name recognition seems to be pretty low. All of the energy statewide last year went into winning AG, SOS, etc. races and CO-02 was a safe race regardless. Yard signs are a horrible measure but I saw lots more Jenna Griswold signs than I did Neguse signs whenever I went to Boulder/Longmont. If he or the state party was trying to rebuild a statewide profile in 2018 (after losing SOS in 2014) they did a bad job.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'm assuming his assertion that Neguse is a "trash tier candidate" is because he would bomb out in some of the Denver suburbs, but that's not really founded. Polis wasn't the most progressive candidate on Earth but he beat Stapleton pretty soundly in those areas. Worth noting that Stapleton had some Trumpy tendencies but did try painting an image as somewhat more serious and practical than the nationwide party so it's not like Polis beat up on Todd Akin. Besides the suburban base of hte party is moving leftward just like the rest of the party is which means these areas could be more receptive to Neguse than they would have been even in 2018. The only exception I can see to this is if the national Democratic party does something really kooky and out of the ordinary like putting explicitly putting reparations in their platform.

That logic holds up for Douglas County but the other Denver suburbs are much different than they were in 2006 or even 2012. They won't vote for Gardner, especially not when Trump is in on the ballot and these places will eagerly turn out to vote for his opponent.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I appreciate that SNJC s actually trying to argue his case but truth is he's exercising willful thinking in that a self-identified progressive candidate will tank in suburbs. There are countless examples of this not being true nationwide and as has been pointed out Colorado, four month ago, was one of these examples.

The candidate who could possibly lose to Gardner (which is rare no matter who it is) is a candidate who doesn't get base turnout, not somebody who threatens to raise taxes on people in Aurora.

For god's sakes Jared Polis's most striking and vocal issue was free and expanded kindergarten. This is expansion of a public good which comes at a cost of, yes, increased tax revenue! And he still obliterated Stapleton in the areas that are supposedly full of moderate voters.

One of the most often peddled but poorly informed takes is that progressive causes are unpopular in suburban areas because muh taxes. But the progressive agenda satisfies many issues that suburbanites, even upper middle class ones, care about! E.g., more four-year college access, child care and parental leave, more health care availability (because yes even people in suburbs can not afford high quality care), etc. A highly educated suburban workforce (like the tech, health care and energy sectors in metro Denver) will gobble these things up.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

So Dan Baer, a former diplomat, has declared, as well as John Walsh. This is going to be a very interesting primary.

Andrew Romanoff and Mike Johnston are still the favorites, I doubt Neguse gets in, he could accumulate seniority and then run later (he's very young)

No, if Neguse wants the seat, he needs to run now.

It's either run now against a vulnerable R in a pickup that should be (compared to other races) low effort or wait until six years from now where he would have to knock off a D incumbent in a primary challenge.

There's no incentive for him to wait.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

The Democrats would be foolish to take this seat for granted.

Nope.

Sorry, I know you love wetting the bed, but Gardner's going to get shit on. Just look at any race in the state since 2014. Trump and the GOP are not popular here and three quarters of what Gardner chooses to make a public emphasis of his campaign is basically party doctrine.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Some fundraising numbers (courtesy of Colorado Public Radio).

Gardner: >$2 mil (article says he now has $5 mil on hand)

Mike Johnston: $1.6 mil
Dan Baer: $1.3 mil
John Walsh: $800K
Andrew Romanoff: $503K
Diana Bray: $72K
Lorena Garcia: $13K

e: oh my this lad is clever

https://twitter.com/jacobfhsmith/status/1150948165127987200

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'm saying what I genuinely think will happen.

I can imagine some tenuous logical chain of reasoning involving Ted Strickland, but I really don't think Hickenlooper is so weak a candidate he would lose. He'd probably not do as well as everyone says though.

Dude SnowLab is a urine-soaked bed in human form. Fretting about 9/1-odds D races is his specialty.

Hickenlooper would win this race by more than 5 but I could see him being held to something like 6 points. I can see leftist enthusiasm for him being in the basement (given his campaign) but with the frenzy around Trump D turnout (by which I mean ballot mail-ins) will be juiced enough that it won't really put him in danger.

Real interesting question is whether or not he tries to legislate like Synema/Manchin or if he is more like Bennet, i.e., not a maverick for maverick's sake. I think it's more likely that because he'll be in a safe seat he'd be less showy about disavowing sOcIaLisM and would vote with the caucus nearly all the time. But he'd definitely still not vote for a program like M4A if a Warren/Sanders administration ever had a trifecta (then again there are a lot of other Senators who would do the same so it's not like he'd be unique in that regard).

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Yeet

I bet you that Hickenlooper will win Chaffee and Garfield, and I think he would have a very good shot at Las Animas, Conejos, and Huerfano as well. Particularly Huerfano and Chaffee, as every statewide Democrat won them last year. Polis won Garfield, and Griswold won Los Animas and Conejos.

True, I really struggled with those, which is why I barely gave them to Gardner. They will be close either way. While 1-2 of those breaking for Hick would not surprise me either, all of them going to Hick would really surprise me. I just think that Gardner does a bit better in the rurals and relatively low pop areas due to polarization and Trump being on the ticket, but doing relatively badly in the denver, boulder, ft collins, and Co Springs areas. Also, I do not think Hick will win by the blow out proportions that many are expecting and polls are showing, but I still expect a nonetheless very comfortable 7-8 point majority win.

Hickenlooper's pretty moderate on energy policy which is huge in the southern area of the state. He's generally a more favorable candidate to rural areas than generic D. I could easily see a race where Trump holds onto Los Animas, Conejos and Huerfano while Hickenlooper picks off two or even all three of those. I bet Hickenlooper would also outperform the top of the ticket in Weld.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Look, there are perfectly legitimately reasons to dislike Hickenlooper but for those of you who do dislike him - seriously, come to terms with it now. He's inevitable. You'll save yourself a lot of avoidable anguish if you just accept it.

It may be the case that he ends up winning, but that doesn't mean we should allow him to get away with being more to the right of the average Coloradan. Recent statewide winners in this state have been more left-leaning than him, so in the event that he does win, we should try our best to push him more to the left of where he currently is, and if he fails to do that, I would gladly welcome primary challengers who are to the left of him.

Lmao what? Bolded part is one of the most bizarre claims I have ever seen on this site.

Jared Polis being the only Democrat on the ballot and winning in a D wave year does not make John Hickenlooper "more to the right" of the average Coloradan.

Like I get and agree with the point that you're that CO Dems can and should nominate someone who has right of center of the rest of the party on a handful of issues but what you said is either a careless typo or shows you have no idea how the state of Colorado works.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

https://kdvr.com/2019/09/12/sen-gardner-cheers-trump-administration-decision-to-drop-water-protection-rule/amp/?fbclid=IwAR0u9soLRKZqzoDVb4MpK2YsqAZuwDm3bBpg5MyXH5MTyvIx11ULl7xF3CQ

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The Trump administration on Thursday revoked an Obama-era regulation that shielded many U.S. wetlands and streams from pollution but was opposed by developers and farmers who said it hurt economic development and infringed on property rights, a move that Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner cheered as “a victory for Colorado’s farmers.”

Environmental groups criticized the administration’s action, the latest in a series of moves to roll back environmental protections put into place under President Barack Obama.

The 2015 Waters of the United States rule defined the waterways subject to federal regulation. Scrapping it “puts an end to an egregious power grab, eliminates an ongoing patchwork of clean water regulations and restores a longstanding and familiar regulatory framework,” Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler said at a news conference.

Given the pro-environment lean of Colorado, I'd wager at this rate, Doug Jones has a better shot at re-election than Cory Gardner.

That's laughable, and I think you know better than this.

Doug Jones' chances are more or less in the toilet, no duh.  However, taking positions like these in a pro-environment state isn't a good look.

My statement was more or less hyperbolic.

Pro-environment voters aren't likely to be single-issue voters and are less likely to be swing voters. Given the profile of swing voters it's more likely that a rural swing voter will be anti-environmental protection than pro, especially for land that's not suitable for hunting.

Worth noting that this legislation was hugely unpopular in Iowa in 2015/2016 and it probably had some marginal effects on vote tallies.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I think you guys are too quick to write off Sen. Gardner as a sure loser. Colorado is still a pretty elastic state. CO-06 was re-electing Republican Mike Coffman while voting Democrat for President in both 2012 and 2016. The state voted for Clinton by a margin slightly less than 5 percentage points, and 8.59% voted for someone other than Clinton or Trump. Cook, Inside Elections, Sabato, and Politico all rate this senate race as a tossup. Why is Atlas treating it as Likely D or Safe D?

Trump incredibly unpopular + influx of college educated voters and latinos + Dem trifecta and resounding statewide victories in 2018 + Gardner is a rather unremarkable incumbent

Worth noting that Coffman lost in 2018 and it wasn't even particularly close. He paid the Trump tax that the statewide GOP is paying.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I was planning on voting for Romanoff but this is an absolutely outrageous attack and Anderson should be ashamed by this.

Anybody who watches the video would pick up on the very obvious and crucial word "ancient" used to describe the slave ship. The image he is relying on is a decades-old portrayal of life in ancient war and cargo/merchant ships.

Connections to the Middle Passage are so laughably tenuous that they should be ignored wholesale. Simply put, Tay Anderson either didn't watch the video he is amplifying, or is lying when he draws a connection to "his ancestors". Anderson is a pretty obvious Romanoff supporter; if this is coordinated in any way, it's a despicable and cynical mis-use of charges of anti-black racism. If Romanoff is planning on weaponizing this footage himself, then he will lose my vote.

Of course, the forum's pseudomoderate boobs who have zero ideology except for moderation for moderation's sake are now abandoning Hick because they have no apparent principles and appear to be too dumb to understand what is happening here.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'm starting to think Romanoff has a good shot here. Too many things are stacking up against Hickenlooper right now - college educated voters exploring further-left ideology in the wake of COVID and police shootings, the simmering ethics probe he isn't really doing anything to diffuse, a blase debate performance, some higher profile endorsements coming in for Romanoff. Seems like Romanoff has a big base energy right now that Hickenlooper doesn't.

People (myself included) called the March results a one-off, but the underlying currents are only shifting in Romanoff's favor as time goes on.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Aren't most of Colorado's votes already mailed in? It's not like everyone is voting in CO next week.

Almost certainly not - as with KY, a lot of voters will probably leave it ‘til late and drop their ballot off on the day of the primary. The first ballots in Colorado only went out this week, if I’m not mistaken.

Mine was mailed on June 9th.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I did not see that one coming.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I did not see that one coming.

Agreed, but it makes most sense as a small part of her bid for the VP slot. In my view, that's a bad gamble - presumably adding only marginal gain to her chances there while damaging her credibility for 2024 should Biden lose. The probability of this still high enough to be worth preparing for.

Maybe this is overthinking but maybe it's to disincentivize Bernie or other congressional Dems (like AOC) from endorsing Romanoff? Seems like conflicting endorsements would send mixed messages

Still not sure why Warren would not align herself with Romanoff in the first place though. He takes some unpopular lefty positions like full-throated support for reparations, but... Warren has also endorsed those positions.