Jared Polis is termed out as Colorado Governor, so we’ll be electing someone new in 2026. Senator Michael Bennet, who is not up for re-election until 2028, has declared his candidacy, and he’s got a lot of Colorado Democrats lined up behind him. Notably, Reps Joe Neguse and Jason Crow were at his announcement speech.
One of the statements he made in his announcement was that if he’s elected, he’ll name his successor. Frankly, that’s a case of two negatives not adding up to a positive in my book.
Reader S sent me an article a while back detailing the unnecessary conservatism of Colorado Senators. Subtitled “In 2025, the Centennial State has the electorate of Illinois but the Senate representation of Arizona”, the piece, dated in early April, points this out:
When it comes to Senate floor votes, neither Hickenlooper nor Bennet has heeded the activists’ calls. They have been among the Senate Democrats most likely to back Trump’s Cabinet picks, voting to confirm eight and 10 nominees, respectively, out of the 21 selected so far.
A more comprehensive database tracking 2025 Senate votes, including votes on lower-level appointees, procedural motions and legislation, tells a similar story. The tracker, maintained by Massachusetts-based progressive organizer Jonathan Cohn, tallied 155 votes by the full Senate through March 27.
When collated with 2024 election results, this vote data shows a clear, unsurprising pattern: Senate Democrats representing swing states are more likely than those in safe blue seats to cross the aisle and back Trump’s nominees and legislative priorities. For example, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona — elected narrowly in a state that Trump won by more than 5 percentage points last year — has voted with Republicans almost 33% of the time in 2025, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of deep-blue Massachusetts has done so just 3% of the time.
The single biggest exception to this rule? Colorado and its moderate Senate duo, who have voted with Trump and their GOP colleagues roughly a quarter of the time while representing a state that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by 11 percentage points in the 2024 election.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has also declared his candidacy, and former Senator, Interior Secretary and Ambassador to Mexico Pete Salazar, a wee sprite of 70, is also considering a run. (Weiser is 56 and Bennet is 60.) Weiser has already raised $2 million. Bennet and Salazar have the potential to raise a bunch of cash, too.
So this is going to be a big, well-funded primary, and it will test the proposition that base Democrats are going to punish politicians who have a poor record fighting Trump. It will also be a test case about whether a state that’s pretty solidly blue (statewide) has an electorate that’s left-leaning, or just happy to be ruled by center-left politicians who they like.
Neguse’s support of Bennet is interesting, since he’s the leftmost Democrat from Colorado in Congress. (Mostly silent Diana DeGette, who has the bluest district in Colorado, Denver’s D+29 CO-1, has yet to be heard from on the primary, or on pretty much any other issue.)
I’m looking forward to this race as I learn the politics of my new home state.
