The winners and losers from Tuesday’s election are obvious, but there are several more unconventional victories and defeats in the midterm fallout than Republicans and Democrats.
Winner: television stations
More than $105 million was spent on political TV advertising in Colorado, according to an analysis by Colorado Public Radio of filings to the Federal Communications Commission through Oct. 31. And that is just the traditional channels, not cable or satellite.
Loser: television viewers
Nearly 123,000 ads were played, many times back-to-back. Those 30-second bites are moments you will never get back. Expect the same onslaught to occur again in 2016. It’s not easy being purple, Colorado. Perhaps, by then, cord-cutting will have become an epidemic and people will no longer watch anything with ads.
Winner: U.S. Postal Service
The oft-considered irrelevant snail-mail delivery service rose to importance with Colorado’s all-mail ballot. Pundits believe the mail-in system may have benefited Republicans because it is a familiar service for older people — a demographic that skews Republican.
Loser: scare tactics
Republicans asked if your family would be safe with Gov. John Hickenlooper in office. And Sen. Mark Udall said women’s reproductive rights would be in peril under Rep. Cory Gardner. Both ideas failed at the polls.
Winner: death-row inmates
Hickenlooper made it clear he will not execute anyone while in office, a position that became a campaign issue. Nathan Dunlap, who was convicted in the 1993 Chuck E. Cheese killing and is next up for execution, was spared for now.
Loser: recall positions
Republicans Bernie Herpin and George Rivera, who won Senate seats in successful recall elections in 2013, were unable to hold onto those seats this time around.
Winner: rural Colorado
A year after eastern Colorado threatened to secede from the state, the area will now have someone in the U.S. Senate in Gardner, the son of a tractor salesman who grew up in the tiny town of Yuma.
Loser: Deadspin
Speaking of Yuma, the sports-centered website Deadspin thought it had an October surprise when it tried to bust Gardner for making up his prep football career. Then Gardner brought out the team photos.
Winner: the ugly process
Despite allegations that this wasn’t an election of substance, the vitriol, finger-pointing and aspersions that were cast stripped candidates to their cores. At the end, we knew exactly where each person stood. And their every character flaw and misstep was exposed.
Loser: marijuana
Sure, pot was legalized in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C. But changes in federal banking laws will be more difficult with Republicans holding both chambers of Congress. And in Colorado, a handful of communities balked at retail marijuana, pot-friendly gubernatorial candidate Mike Dunafon finished fifth, and the state Senate could no longer be a safe environment for the marijuana industry if the GOP takes control.
E-mail Jeremy Meyer at jpmeyer@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @JPMeyerDPost
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