Colorado Congress Shifts to Blue

In the state of Colorado, the balance of power in the congressional delegation has shifted dramatically. Before the midterm election, the state sent an equal number of Democrats and Republicans to Washington, D.C. That four-to-four split has been upended. At least one Republican congressman has lost his seat, and the counting of ballots suggests at least two more GOP seats are changing hands.

Shad Murib, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, stated that his organization has not given up on the goal of winning all eight congressional districts. "We're not going to rest until every single vote in every single district is counted," Murib said. "The whole point in winning big is you can deliver big."

The prospect of a unified Democratic delegation is historically rare for Colorado. The state has not sent a single-party slate of House and Senate members to the national capital since 1941. That previous all-Democrat delegation occurred when Colorado held only four seats in Congress.

Results in specific districts illustrate the scale of the Republican losses. In the 8th Congressional District, which is located northeast of Denver, Democrat Manny Rutinel defeated incumbent Republican Gabe Evans by a wide margin. During the campaign, Rutinel consistently associated Evans with President Donald Trump on legislative votes.

Two reliably Republican districts also saw their incumbents trail on Wednesday evening. In the 4th District, Democrat Jessica Killin held a nearly five-percentage-point lead over U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank. The 4th District, centered in El Paso County, had never previously sent a Democrat to Washington, D.C. In the 5th District, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert trailed Eileen Laubacher, a moderate Democrat, by fewer than 3,500 votes.

In the 3rd Congressional District, Republican incumbent Jeff Hurd maintained a narrow but growing lead over Democrat Dwayne Romero as of Wednesday evening. Hurd had trailed Romero the previous night. Murib noted that the defeated Republicans did not pursue the priorities voters wanted their representatives to focus on during the 2024 election.

National trends mirrored the local results. Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, as voters repudiated the Trump agenda amid high prices and an ongoing war in Iran. Andy Boian, a Democratic political strategist, predicted the final count in Colorado would result in a seven-to-one Democratic delegation. He described the change as seismic for the state, at least for the next two years.

Political analysts suggest that maintaining these seats may prove difficult. Boian noted that the voter base in the 4th and 5th districts remains strongly Republican. He cited the example of Betsy Markey, a Democrat who won the 4th District in 2008 but lost her re-election bid two years later. "I find it difficult to see Democrats holding on to districts 4 or 5 for longer than a term or two," Boian said. "It could be a sugar high right now."

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who lost his 2018 re-election bid in the 6th District, agreed that the 4th and 5th districts will likely return to the GOP. "These districts will eventually return to their roots," Coffman said. He argued that Democrats will face challenges balancing the needs of their House caucus with the specific needs of those districts. Dick Wadhams, former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, warned that the new Democratic members in red districts will face pressure to vote on unpopular issues. "They're going to take some awfully tough votes in 2027 and those will define their candidacies in 2028," Wadhams said.