More than 100 years later, Colorado voters could be left out of the process of selecting our representative to the upper chamber of Congress.

That¶¶Ņõap not how democracy should work. And the Colorado General Assembly should do something about it.

Colorado will elect a new governor this fall. If that governor turns out to be Sen. Michael Bennet, voters will have no say in who serves them in the Senate. That¶¶Ņõap because Sen. Bennet Ā says he ā€œwill be in the position to pick the replacement.”

No ballots will be cast. Voters likely wonā€™t even know the names being considered for our stateā€™s highest federal office until after the decision has been made. If Bennet is elected governor, that decision will fall to him alone ā€“ taking advantage of a flaw in the current system that must be corrected.

Bennet has been routinely pressed on the issue on the campaign trail, and campaign supporters were recently directed to tell anyone who asked: ā€œThere will be some really great, young Democrat who is there to vote exactly the same way that Michael votes.”

Voters deserve better. Bennet should either say now who intends to appoint or — to remove even a hint of impropriety ā€” promise to resign his Senate seat should he win the governorā€™s race and let Gov. Polis make the appointment before leaving office. Then, the legislature should come up with a fix moving forward that puts the decision in the hands of voters ā€” which is already how it works in Colorado for U.S. House vacancies.

It¶¶Ņõap my view that once Sen. Bennet thinks on it a bit — he will agree.

Colorado law gives governors the authority to fill Senate vacancies without any restrictions other than that the appointee satisfy constitutional requirements for the office. Sen. Bennet, whose third full term isnā€™t up until 2028, has confirmed his intention to make use of that authority upon election — foregoing even the marginally preferable option of allowing current Gov. Polis to appoint a replacement ā€” and retaining his Senate seat should he lose the gubernatorial election.

One of the major problems with the current system is it gives Bennet an unfair advantage over his competition ā€“ anyone who would like to be the senator of our state (which is a lot of people) will feel huge pressure to support Bennet for governor.

Although I have no reason to doubt his good intentions, one cannot help but think of the debacle of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sentenced (and ultimately pardoned by President Trump) on charges of trying to profit from his power to appoint someone to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat.

While Bennet¶¶Ņõap decision — should he be elected governor ā€” to select his replacement falls within the legal authority of the governorā€™s office, the perception of a conflict (in which those considered or, ultimately, appointed must kiss the proverbial ring) is simply too great. Anyone and everyone with a desire to be chosen to serve as senator (which comes with a huge, unearned incumbency advantage in the next election cycle) will feel pressure to play along.

I believe voters, not politicians, should have the final say on who represents them in Washington, D.C. A special election was held when Rep. Ken Buck vacated his Congressional District 4 seat in 2024, and the state legislature needs to give voters the right to pick their senator back.

Following the Blagojevich saga, several states passed laws either removing the power of appointment from governors entirely or allowing brief placeholder appointments until voters could fill the vacancy through a special election. Methods vary, and details like election timelines and whether custodial appointees are eligible to run must be considered before passing such laws in Colorado. Polling shows the commonsense point you would expect: A clear majority of Coloradans want to vote to pick their senator, not have them appointed.

As a starting point, I would suggest a special election be held to fill the vacancy as soon as practical, and a placeholder appointed ā€“ either by the governor or the legislature ā€“ only to ensure Coloradans are represented in the Senate until voters quickly select the replacement to fill the remainder of the term.

While some might decry the cost of holding a special election, I assert that a democracy that’s in the hands of voters ā€“ not politicians ā€“ is worth it. At least 15 other states have proven that by already establishing such a system, several in response to the Blagojevich mess. But let¶¶Ņõap get serious: It does not take being a criminal to want to use this absolute power without creating in the appointee some sense of obligation or without having them commit to policy positions they would not otherwise.

The infringement upon the democratic process that vacancy appointments impose must be recognized and addressed without any further delay. Bennet’s gubernatorial run has brought this issue to the forefront, but it¶¶Ņõap hardly an isolated incident. We’ve seen a plethora of vacancies in our state legislature (so much that in the last few years as many as one in three lawmakers arrived via appointment) and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that U.S. Senate vacancies could surge as well.

Bennet was appointed to his own Senate seat in 2009, going on to be democratically reelected three times. For democracyā€™s sake, I hope heā€™s one of the last appointments.

Kent Thiry has co-chaired multiple successful Colorado citizen ballot initiatives including the 2016 efforts to restore the stateā€™s presidential primary election (Proposition 107) and to open °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s primary elections to unaffiliated voters (Proposition 108), and 2018 efforts to ban political gerrymandering and create independent commissions to draw °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s congressional and legislative voter maps (Amendments Y and Z, respectively). He is the former chair and chief executive officer of DaVita.

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In a video announcement, Lopez spoke about putting “people over politics” while hitting on Republican red-meat issues like “government overreach,” cutting taxes and regulations, and referencing conservative concerns about public education.

“People over politics means cutting through the government red tape, making life more affordable and putting families first,” he said in the video. “This movement is about listening, not dividing.”

Lopez is the highest-profile Republican to join the 2026 gubernatorial field seeking to succeed term-limited Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who has served since 2019. Lopez is set to compete in the GOP primary next year against at least two state lawmakers, Rep. Scott Bottoms and Sen. Mark Baisley, as well as Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell.

Last week, Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet unveiled his long-anticipated campaign for governor, catapulting himself to the front of small Democratic field previously dominated by Attorney General Phil Weiser.

In June, Lopez won a special election to represent the Eastern Plains’ 4th Congressional District for roughly six months after former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck stepped down early. Lopez didn’t pursue a full term, and the seat was later won by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who switched from the 3rd Congressional District.

Lopez’s stint in Congress was the second shortest of any Coloradan, behind William E. Burney’s two-month stretch in the early 1940s. Lopez previously told The Denver Post that it was an “honor and a pleasure” to have worked in Congress, even if he felt like an exchange student.

Earlier, Lopez served as the mayor of Parker. He ran for governor in 2018 and 2022, losing in the primary race each time. In 2016, he briefly ran for a U.S. Senate seat. A former director for the Small Business Administration, with the Trump administration’s Department of Justice in 2020 to resolve allegations that he’d violated conflict-of-interest policies.

After less than half a year representing the 4th Congressional District, Lopez will step aside as the second-shortest-serving member of Congress in state history — behind only , who filled a vacancy in Colorado’s then-3rd District from Nov. 5, 1940, to Jan. 3, 1941.

Lopez, a Republican who was , said his congressional stint was an “honor and a pleasure,” if a bit discombobulated. The former mayor of Parker and a two-time Colorado gubernatorial hopeful rented 14 places on short-term leases to serve as home during his six months of service in Washington, D.C.

“I was like that foreign exchange student — I showed up in the middle of the year and missed the yearbook picture, but everybody liked me because they didn’t know that much about me,” he told The Denver Post last week, as he picked up pozole in Aurora for Christmas dinner with his wife of 37 years, Lisa.

Despite the truncated term, Lopez played a small but notable role in what became a convoluted electoral chess game centered on the political survival of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, boosted GOP billing among Colorado’s congressional delegation and, ultimately, solidified Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the upcoming Congress.

“The amount of coordination and the little bit of luck to get this to come together is something I will be teaching in class for a while,” Colorado State University political science professor Kyle Saunders said. “It’s a political story, it’s a campaign story and it’s a candidate story.”

Lopez, 60, won a special election in late June to fill out the term of Ken Buck, the longtime representative of the Eastern Plains district. Buck had abandoned his seat in March — nine months before his term was up. His retirement, announced in late 2023, set in motion a switch by Boebert, who was facing tough reelection prospects in her Western Slope district, to politically friendlier territory on the other side of the state.

The plan worked: Boebert won a hard-fought 4th Congressional District primary in a crowded Republican field and went on to win election easily in November. On the same night, Republican Jeff Hurd defeated his well-funded Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, in the district Boebert had departed less than a year prior, and two years after Frisch nearly toppled her in the midterm election.

“It led to the Republicans holding both of these seats,” Saunders said of Boebert’s move.

Lopez, chosen by the 4th District¶¶Ņõap central committee in late March to run in the special election, made it clear from the outset that he wouldn’t run in the June 25 primary against Boebert and nine other GOP hopefuls.

Boebert, in a statement, praised Lopez as having represented Colorado “in a principled manner” as she scraped her way to becoming his successor. The 4th District seat represents agricultural communities across a large expanse of land but also well-populated suburban Douglas County in south metro Denver.

ā€œWhile his time in Congress may have been quick, Congressman Lopez absolutely made the most of it and gave a voice to °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s 4th District that his constituents had been without for too long,” she said. “He consistently went above and beyond his duties, from speaking up for his district in internal meetings and on the House floor to being an eager collaborator on the issues we agreed on, like cutting wasteful government spending.”

The nation’s mounting debt was a chief concern for Lopez while he was in Congress. In his final vote as a congressman, he opposed a continuing resolution to fund the government, saying on Dec. 20 that he could not “accept a bill that does nothing to address our $36 trillion debt.”

In September, he introduced a bill requiring a tally of the national debt to be listed on ballots in elections for federal office.

The next month, he introduced a bill touting a “Red Card” system to allow private businesses to hire immigrant workers who enter and live in the U.S. to work “under strict government oversight.” The arrangement, which would be critical to the 4th District’s labor-hungry agricultural sector, would not provide those workers a path to citizenship.

At the time that concern about Venuezelan gang activity and arrests in Aurora was making national headlines in September, Lopez introduced a measure that called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to detain and deport people in the country illegallyĀ with known gang affiliations.

None of his bills made it to the House floor for a vote, but Lopez said he was glad to have a voice in the Congress.

“I went in there knowing I was going to be there a short time,” he said. “It’s not often you get a chance to serve the people at that level.”

It wasn’t all work and grind in Washington. Lopez, during the interview, reminisced about the September day he was chosen MVP at the congressional flag football game against the Capitol Police.

As for the future and where politics might fit into it, Lopez said he was “keeping all my options open.”

“It’s been a great six months,” he said, “and maybe at some point I’ll write a book about it.”

The closely fought 8th Congressional District, where Republican state lawmaker Gabe Evans unseated incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo by less than 2,500 votes, accounted for nearly half of the total spending — $40 million total. Of that, $29 million was spent by outside groups in the 8th, which covers the north Denver suburbs up through Greeley.

It was one of the 10 most expensive congressional races in the country, according to campaign finance tracker .

Much of the remaining money focused on the Western Slope-based 3rd Congressional District, where Democrat Adam Frisch nearly unseated Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert in 2022 but faced a new GOP nominee this time, and the Eastern Plains’ 4th Congressional District. That traditionally ruby-red Republican district is where Boebert ran in this cycle. Campaigns filed their post-election reports by Thursday night with the Federal Election Commission.

In the 8th District, the spending showed a clear tilt toward Caraveo, the incumbent in the state’s newest seat. Her campaign directly spent more than $8 million, records show, while outside groups spent more than $16 million to either boost her or tear down Evans.

In all, more than $151 was spent for each of the 160,871 general election votes she received.

Evans spent more than $2.5 million directly, while another $13 million was spent by outside groups — or about $96 total for each of his 163,320 votes.

“Gabe Evans was the only candidate in the country to beat a Democrat incumbent in a state Kamala Harris won because we ran a disciplined campaign with the best candidate in the country,” Evans campaign spokesperson Tyler Moore said in a statement Friday. “Despite being massively outspent, Gabeā€™s message as a cop, soldier, husband, father and Latino resonated with everyday Coloradans who want good jobs, affordability and safe communities.”

Caraveo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The flipped seat will split Colorado’s congressional delegation between four Democrats and four Republicans, despite the state’s distinctly blue shift in recent elections. It also will give Republicans a slight buffer in Washington, D.C., where the party will enter the next term with in Congress.

The 8th District is one of the most competitive in the nation, and the political parties and House leadership spent like their potential majorities depended on it.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican-affiliated super PAC, and the National Republican Congressional Committee spent a combined $9.6 million to boost Evans’ campaign. The House Majority PAC, Democrats’ super PAC, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee likewise combined for about $8 million to support Caraveo.

The partisan groups were four of the top five outsider spenders. The pro-cryptocurrency political action committee Fairshake rounded out the top five, with about $2.2 million spent to boost Caraveo.

Lopsided money in 3rd District

He spent nearly all of his $18 million bankroll in this cycle trying to get over the finish line after Boebert switched districts in late 2023 — aided by about $649,000 in outside money. That total spending was about 4.5 times the campaign and outside spending on behalf of Republican Jeff Hurd.

Hurd won the Republican-leaning district by about 19,800 votes, or about 5 percentage points.

In all, spending by or to support Hurd amounted to about $20 per general election vote (though he also faced a competitive primary, which accounted for some of the spending). Spending by Frisch or to support him amounted to about $102 per general election vote.

The results show that “you’ll never be able to purchase an election” if voters don’t trust the candidate’s authenticity or their party, said Nick Bayer, a spokesperson for Hurd’s campaign, in an email Friday. Frisch’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

“We always knew we were going to be grossly outspent, so we had to rely on Jeffā€™s extraordinary work ethic to be everywhere,” Bayer said. “Our team was lean and smart in any expenditure we made, and community leaders and local party organizations stepped up big time to help us get our message out.”

Spending in Boebert’s race

Meanwhile, the money followed Boebert in her move to the northern Front Range to run for the 4th District seat. She reported spending more than $5.6 million this election cycle, including to win a six-person primary race in June. Most of Boebert’s reported spending happened before the homestretch of the campaign this fall.

Trisha Calvarese, who won a three-person Democratic primary in June, saw her fundraising and — correspondingly — spending take off after Boebert won the Republican nomination. Calvarese ended up spending about $4.1 million, almost all of it after the primary, to contest the most Republican district in the state.

Boebert spent about $1.1 million in that time, according to her campaign finance reports. Boebert won the seat by more than 50,000 votes, or about 11 percentage points. Her campaign declined to comment Friday.

Including outside spending — which was much lower than in the 8th District — about $23.72 was spent by or in support of Boebert for each general election vote she won. Total spending amounted to $23.45 per vote for Calvarese, who received more outside support.

Calvarese highlighted that she outran the last Democrat to vie for the seat — Ike McCorkle by 24 percentage points in 2022 — and called herself “humbled, grateful and inspired by the might of us ordinary people and a growing labor movement.”

“In a cycle where nine out of 10 U.S. counties shifted red, Boebert had to spend big in the reddest district in Colorado,” Calvarese wrote in a text message. “Why? Because hardworking people invested in the idea of a representative from the district dedicated to doing the hard work of Congressional casework instead of self-promotional crap like Cameo.”

Money spent to win each vote

Here’s a breakdown of the equivalent direct spending per general election vote earned by major congressional campaigns in Colorado in the 2024 cycle. The figures do not include outside spending, unless otherwise noted. In some cases, candidates faced primary elections that would have contributed to spending throughout the cycle.

1st Congressional District: Rep. Diana DeGette (D, winner): $4.42; Valdamar Archuleta (R): $0.14.

2nd Congressional District: Rep. Joe Neguse (D, winner): $8.08; Marshall Dawson (R): $0.21.

3rd Congressional District: Adam Frisch (D): $98.08; Jeff Hurd (R, winner): $13.46.

4th Congressional District: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R, winner): $23.46; Trisha Calvarese (D): $21.73.

5th Congressional District: Jeff Crank (R, winner): $4.67; River Gassen (D): $1.05.

6th Congressional District: Rep. Jason Crow (D, winner): $9.78; John Fabbricatore (R): $2.14.

7th Congressional District: Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D, winner): $8.11; Sergei Matveyuk (R): $0.22.

8th Congressional District: Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D): $50.33; Gabe Evans (R, winner): $15.51. (Including outside spending, totals were $151.25 for Caraveo and $96.48 for Evans. The race was one of the most heavily contested in the country.)

Source: Federal Election Commission filings.

Colorado voters navigated a complex ballot full of policy questions and did a remarkable job of parsing through the pros and cons of each measure.

As Donald Trump regains the White House with a Republican majority in the House and Senate, we are thrilled voters in Colorado have added constitutional protections to abortion. A remarkable 61% of voters wanted reproductive freedoms in the state Constitution and repealed an outdated law preventing Medicaid from covering abortions.

Our voices on abortion, as well as a majority of voters who supported abortion rights in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and New York, send a strong message that abortion should not be banned by federal lawmakers.

Colorado voters spoke out clearly that they wanted to be tougher on crime, allocating $350 million from the state’s general fund for police officerā€™s salaries, retention bonuses, training and a fund for if they are injured or killed. Voters also said they donā€™t want murder suspects to be eligible for bail and want criminals to serve at least 85% of their sentences.

This tracks with what happened nationwide, where every county in California approved a ballot measure repealing a law considered to be soft on crime. It also partially explains Trumpā€™s big win.

But Colorado voters rejected other conservative measures, including a ballot measure that would have guaranteed Coloradans school choice. While we love our charter schools, we recognize that vouchers for the wealthy students already attending private schools will only undermine our public school funding.

The most surprising outcome of all was that voters rejected a ban on mountain lion and bobcat hunting and trapping. Coloradans have historically voted at the ballot box in favor of animal rights, and it was a refreshing turn of course for a measure that went too far to be soundly rejected.

Denver voters took a similar course this election striking down attempts to shut down a lamb slaughterhouse and to ban fur sales within city limits. Both measures were brought by a group that believes killing any animal for food or clothing should be classified as animal cruelty.

For years, weā€™ve lamented the existence of an urban/rural divide but that gap seems to be closing ā€“ 55% of voters opposed the Proposition 127 hunting ban. Respecting all forms of outdoor recreation in a state loved for its wild places is healthy. Voters, however, also voted to tax gun sales, making sure firearms help pay for the victimsā€™ advocacy services in this state.

Our state is politically diverse. As of Thursday 1.47 million people had voted for Kamala Harris and 1.16 million had voted for Trump.

Coloradans replaced three retiring or fleeing incumbent Republicans at the ballot this year. Jeff Crank, a long-time Republican commentator from El Paso County and Jeff Hurd, a Republican newcomer to politics who grew up in Grand Junction, will join our stalwart Democratic Party incumbents who all won safe elections: Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, and Brittany Pettersen. We are excited to see how Crank and Hurd navigate D.C. politics and wish them well.

Lauren Boebert will also return to Congress only this time representing Congressional District 4. We will miss Ken Buck.

Meanwhile, the race in °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s newest congressional district is too close to call. Incumbent Yadira Caraveo was only winning by 2,300 votes with thousands of ballots remaining to be counted.

No matter what happens chaos unfolds in Washington as Trump retakes the White House, we are confident that Coloradans will stick together and work for a brighter future for everyone who calls this great state home.

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The Associated Press declared Boebert the winner at 9:18 p.m.

according to the latest unofficial results. Democrat Trisha Calvarese had nearly 43% of the 392,639 of the ballots tallied.

Boebert said Democratic contender Trisha Calvarese called to concede, and shortly before 10 p.m., Calvarese issued a concession statement to the media that highlighted the 10-percentage-point margin — saying she “significantly over performed” expectations.

Also on the ballot were Frank Atwood of the Approval Voting Party with 1.30%; Hannah Goodman of the Libertarian Party with 2.41%; and Paul Noel Fiorino of the Unity Party with 0.29%

ELECTION RESULTS: Live Colorado election results for the 2024 election

Boebert’s defection from the 3rd Congressional District created a stir in a part of the state where the Republican candidate is usually a shoo-in. But Calvarese’s effort to upset Boebert drew millions of dollars in contributions in recent months.

Even so, the district that encompasses a huge chunk of eastern Colorado, is considered the safest in the state for Republicans. Ken Buck, who stepped down early after announcing he wouldn’t run again, won reelection by nearly 24 percentage points over his Democratic opponent in 2022.

“In these uncertain times, as we start a new political chapter, I know this to be true: Love exists. People are good. Iā€™m not going anywhere,” Calvarese said in her statement. “Despite the outcome tonight, Iā€™m committed to the dignity of working people and a democratic future that belongs to ALL of us.”

Boebert, 37, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump, barely defeated Democrat Adam Frisch for a second term in the 3rd District in 2022. She pulled up stakes in western Colorado and moved to Windsor after a contentious divorce and generating international headlines for her ouster from the touring Broadway musical ā€œBeetlejuiceā€ at Denverā€™s Buell Theatre.

Calvarese, 38, who recently returned to Highlands Ranch where she grew up, has called out the Beetlejuice incident as well as Boebert’s vote against expanding health care coverage for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits while deployed. The Democrat, who won a three-way race in the primary election, called her challenge of Boebert “absolutely winnable,” citing a poll released in May showing nearly half the respondents with an

However, Boebert, despite being called a carpetbagger for switching to the 4th District, defeated five opponents in the GOP primary, winning three times as many votes as the next-closest candidate. While Boebert’s controversial statements and actions, like heckling President Joe Biden during a State of the Union speech, have garnered criticism, her support for gun rights and cracking down on illegal immigration and her opposition to abortion resonate with conservative voters.

Calvarese, who worked for the National Science Foundation and the AFL-CIO, the nationā€™s largest federation of labor unions, supports abortion rights, investing in renewable energy to address climate change and ensuring access to health care

Frisch conceded to Hurd on Wednesday at about 3:30 p.m. By then, Hurd had just over 50% of the vote to Frisch’s 46.8%, with 354,331 votes counted.

“I told voters — and I intend to follow up on that promise — that securing the border will be a top priority, growing our energy economy and protecting water and agriculture, so those are going to be my top priorities when I’m sworn in,” Hurd said in a phone interview.

On Wednesday afternoon, he described himself as “a little tired, but very happy and excited to move on to serving this district where I was raised and where I’m raising my family.”

To Coloradans, including his constituents in District 3, “they can expect a sincere, hardworking, authentic representative who will never forget where he came from and who he’s serving,” Hurd said.

, which provides nonpartisan analyses of electoral races, ranked the race as one that leaned Republican. That was a shift from its former ranking as “likely Republican,” which made it more competitive for Frisch.

ELECTION RESULTS: Live Colorado election results for the 2024 election

The other two candidates on the ballot were the Unity Party of Colorado’s Adam Withrow and James Wiley, a Libertarian.

District 3 encompasses much of the Western Slope. A handful of cities — Grand Junction, Pueblo, Aspen, Durango and Glenwood Springs — also fall within its jurisdiction.

The area tends to vote red, but Frisch put up a fight in 2022 against Boebert, losing only by about 500 votes. Since then, Boebert has left the 3rd District to focus on succeeding U.S. Rep. Ken Buck in the Eastern Plains’ conservative 4th District.

Hurd, an attorney in Grand Junction, won the GOP Ā around 41% of the vote. Former State Rep. Ron Hanks trailed at No. 2 with almost 29%, followed by former Colorado State Board of Education member with close to 10%.

Frisch, who previously served as an Aspen city councilman, won the Democratic primary in June uncontested.

He ran on a platform focused on protecting the local water supply, helping families afford household necessities and addressing immigration issues, according to the candidate questionnaire he answered for The Denver Post.

“A few moments ago, I called to offer my congratulations to Jeff Hurd for being the next Representative for °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s 3rd Congressional District,” Frisch said in a news release. “While we were not victorious, I believe that this campaign was part of an important movement that seeks to turn the political temperature down and start focusing on the real challenges that face communities like the ones in CD3.”

Re: “Boebert harnesses new district’s GOP advantage,” Oct. 13 news story

Many thanks for Nick Coltrainā€™s article. Perhaps your 4th Congressional District readers would be interested in a perspective from District 3, which Rep. Lauren Boebert currently ā€œrepresents.ā€

I live in Durango. I am not affiliated with a party. We are not fond of Boebert here. She was never interested in anything but showing off and advancing her own interests, and that¶¶Ņõap just the tip of the criticism iceberg. But since she ran off to the plains, our district has essentially been unrepresented in Congress. She went from doing almost nothing to doing absolutely nothing to address the real issues out here. And the lies! It will be so disappointing if the good people of District 4 canā€™t see through her and instead elect her to replace the honorable and decent Congressman Ken Buck. Talk about trading a diamond for a clod of dirt!

Dear people of District 4: Take it from your fellow Coloradans in District 3. Vote for Trisha Calvarese!

Kristina Woods, Durango

Vote to improve Adams 12 Five Star Schools

I urge my fellow community members to vote yes on ballot issues to ensure Adams 12 Five Star Schools receive the critical investments needed to provide a world-class education in safe and modern learning environments.

As a former educator and parent to a kindergartener, I understand how vital the role of high-quality educators can be for a childā€™s development. I have also seen first-hand how students thrive in classrooms where they are engaged and learning real-world skills. The Mill Levy Override (5D) will generate $34.5 million annually to recruit and retain high-quality educators, offer more classes like computer science at the elementary level, and prepare students for emerging industries with hands-on courses at the secondary level.

School safety is also a top concern for my family in deciding where to send our daughter to school. The bond measure (5E) allows the district to invest $830 million in much-needed repairs, safety upgrades, and modern facilities–without raising taxes. This is a smart investment in both our children and our communityā€™s future.

Together, these measures are essential for maintaining vibrant schools that prepare our students for success in todayā€™s competitive world. Strong schools mean a stronger community. Let¶¶Ņõap vote yes on 5D and 5E this November.

Elizabeth Unger, Northglenn

Vote for inclusivity; vote yes on Amendment J

In less than a week until election day, we have a crucial opportunity to remove Colorado’s outdated same-sex marriage ban from our state constitution by voting for Amendment J.

As a member of an affected community and someone who lobbied for this amendment, I can personally attest to its importance. The amendment not only aligns with federal law but also reinforces Colorado’s commitment to inclusivity, equality, and protection for all.

Passing Amendment J isn’t just symbolic. It strengthens our state’s proactive stance on civil rights, ensuring that any potential shifts in federal policy do not undermine marriage equality in Colorado. Its repeal would affirm that Colorado is a state of acceptance, where our laws reflect modern values and respect for all citizens.

Let’s come together to vote “yes” on Amendment J, demonstrating that Colorado remains a state of compassion, dignity, and progress.

Davon Williams, Englewood

Where is the “sense of decency?”

I am an older American whose long-term memory is better than his short-term memory. I remember the echoes and resonances of Sen. Joe McCarthy. Stoking the fire of fear with untruths, he animated many Americans in the early 1950s. We hear those echoes and resonances in many of today’s politicians.

To those politicians, I quote attorney to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?” Unfortunately, the answer appears to be “no.”

Alan Cohen, Denver

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The Eastern Plains district, on paper, is the most Republican-leaning in the state. In 2022, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck won reelection by nearly 24 percentage points, about in line with given the 4th’s partisan makeup.

But like all things concerning U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert¶¶Ņõap political career, this is not a typical election year — especially as she looks to represent the sprawling district that’s geographically opposite from the one that put her in federal office. Her switch has drawn money and attention to the 4th well beyond its usual level.

Boebert headed to Congress to represent the Western Slope after taking out a Republican incumbent in an upset primary win in 2020. Two years later, after a controversy–laden first term, she pulled off a razor-close win in her reelection bid that left her looking vulnerable.

When she announced in late December that she would move to the eastern Colorado district — which includes great expanses of farmland from Wyoming to Oklahoma as well as suburban Denver’s Douglas County —Ā  she upended the race to replace Buck, who’d announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.

Sensing, or perhaps hoping, that Boebert’s general election weakness from 2022 could linger, those looking to unseat Boebert in the Nov. 5 election have given millions of dollars in recent months to her main opponent, Democrat Trisha Calvarese. Calvarese is on pace to raise 10 times what the last Democratic nominee there did, analysts predict, and she hopes to prove conventional wisdom wrong about how deep the 4th District’s partisan divide is.

It all leads to a make-or-break election for Boebert — and for those looking to oust her from Congress.

A convincing victory would cement her place in Colorado politics and affirm her ascendancy among Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. But a lack of incumbency in her new district, along with Boebert¶¶Ņõap recent scandals, give Calvarese hope that she can find a path, slight as it might be, to stop that from happening.

Boebert, 37, has fended off other competitors this year.

She won three times as many votes as her next-closest rival in the crowded Republican primary this summer, showing that her reputation as a conservative fighter carried just as much weight there as in her previous home.

On the same day as the June primary, Calvarese lost a separate special election — by a margin of 24 percentage points — to Republican Greg Lopez to fill out the rest of Buck’s current term after he stepped down early.

For the next term, the November ballot also includes Frank Atwood, of the Approval Voting Party; Hannah Goodman, of the Libertarian Party; and Paul Noel Fiorino, of the Unity Party.

Sparring over Boebert’s past

Despite the 4th District’s clear Republican advantage, Calvarese, 38, calls the race against Boebert ā€œabsolutely winnable,ā€ and she points to finding Boebert underwater in favorability with her new district’s voters.

Calvarese has so far turned the influx of cash she’s received — more than $2.3 million in donations since the June primary — into TV ads seeking to further define Boebert for voters who may have only watched her from afar, while also introducing herself to the district.

At a recent meet-and-greet with Democrats in Loveland, Calvarese mostly focused on her own biography: Working with the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, she helped push key parts of President Joe Bidenā€™s agenda. Through work with the U.S. National Science Foundation, she focused on boosting manufacturing in the country.

Her parents’ cancer diagnoses brought her home from Virginia last year to provide them with end-of-life care. She said her late parents, lifelong Republicans, both urged her to give everything she could to help her community. Calvarese now lives in Highlands Ranch, where she grew up.

She didn’t shy from digging at Boebert at the Loveland event. She highlighted her opponent’s removal from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” last year in Denver, where security cameras recorded her vaping, apparently groping her date and flipping off staff. Calvarese also highlighted Boebert’s vote against a bill to expand health care coverage for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn bits.

The latter, including Boebert heckling Biden as he discussed the program during his State of the Union speech, is the subject of Calvarese’s first TV ad. Boebert’s campaign says her no vote was over concerns about funding for the program, and she previously said the heckling was about the 13 soldiers killed as U.S. forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021.

“(Voters in the district) want representation,” Calvarese said, calling the interest in her campaign “electric.”

“They are hungry for it,” she added. “And unlike Boebert, I didnā€™t ditch one district for another one after embarrassing myself at ‘Beetlejuice.’ ā€

Boebert: New district “has liberated me”

Boebert switched districts after winning the 3rd Congressional District in 2022 and in the aftermath of a contentious divorce from her husband. She moved to Windsor, in the northern Interstate 25 corridor.

Speaking to a gathering of Elbert County conservatives on Wednesday night, Boebert pinned the move explicitly to family matters and called it ā€œone of the most difficult decisions Iā€™ve ever made,ā€ but also one of the best when it comes to her children.

Still, she acknowledged the political benefits of the move.

“Weā€™re not taking our heavy R advantage for granted,” Boebert said of her political affiliation. “We either run unopposed or like weā€™re 10 points behind. However, being in a more Republican district … has liberated me to help Republicans statewide. So every day isnā€™t an in-the-mud fight. I am able to stand strong for far more than I ever would have anywhere else.”

The Republican advantage in the district canā€™t be understated, political analysts say.

Dick Wadhams, a Republican consultant and former state party chairman, called it ā€œvirtually unlosable for a Republican candidate.ā€ Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University, echoed the sentiment, calling it ā€œthe safest Republican district in Colorado.ā€

Boebert, too, been a strong fundraiser, though she hasn’t disclosed more recent totals yet. New reports are due from both candidates this week.

Boebert¶¶Ņõap speech Wednesday, at a rented church, weaved between sermon and politics as she invoked scripture and the Founding Fathers.

She likened the nation’s recent elections to Moses and the Israelites running into the Red Sea, facing the obstacles thrown up by Biden’s policies. To part that sea, voters must have faith — and vote — this November, she said.

She said that under former President Donald Trump, who’s again the Republican nominee, the country had a booming economy and a secure U.S.-Mexico border.

ā€œThis isnā€™t a Christian nationalist story here,ā€ Boebert told the crowd, directly referencing a 2022 Denver Post story about her close ideological alignment with the movement. ā€œThis is about life and peace and personal freedom. Not the immorality of our national debt … this is about securing our nation and securing our people. Securing our freedoms that are not given to us by dirty, corrupt, greedy politicians.

“They are given to us by God and secured in our Constitution.ā€

In an interview, Boebert also highlighted specific local legislation sheā€™s championed as part of the key stakes in the race, including a bill to help Pueblo transition following the closure of a chemical plant there that was approved as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Another was a bill to give small Colorado communities unique ZIP codes.

Chance to “restore honor to our district”

Calvarese likewise highlights the hyper-local issues on the minds of district voters: How to spur local manufacturing of the pesticides that farmers rely on and research on better crop yields, as well as how to help people get into tech fields through training with large language models (the basis of artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT). She also mentions the health care needs of the district and her parents’ struggles in finding care in Douglas County.

But in the big-picture stakes of the race, Calvarese returns to her opponent.

The election is a chance to ā€œrestore honor to our district” and ā€œdignityā€ to Coloradans caught in the crossfire of Boebert’s public incidents, she said.

ā€œWhen you are a person from Colorado and you meet other people from other states — or even around the world — the first thing you donā€™t want to hear is, ‘Oh my God, Lauren Boebert: that embarrassment,’ ā€ Calvarese said. ā€œSo I think it¶¶Ņõap a real opportunity for us. Not just Colorado, but the whole country.ā€

Asked to respond to Calvareseā€™s comment about dignity, Boebert said she was proud of her dignity. She also highlighted Calvareseā€™s own relatively recent return to the district and her work on the Inflation Reduction Act. Boebert characterized the IRA as raising the national debt in order to push ā€œthe Green New Dealā€ championed by some progressives.

ā€œTo me, that is not dignity at all,ā€ Boebert said. ā€œThat is deception at its finest — lying to the American people about the policies that you were pushing and (which are) obviously costing Americans each and every day.ā€

The results of the race could last longer than just this election cycle.

Wadhams, the Republican consultant, called Boebert’s 2022 nail-biter the result of ā€œextraordinary circumstancesā€ following a term in office that left many voters there unhappy. Chief among them: a perception that Boebert was more focused on national attention than on serving the district.

This race gives her a chance to reset — and if she focuses on the needs of the district, he said, it could be hers for the long haul.

It¶¶Ņõap a sentiment echoed by Saunders, the CSU professor. Though the race has drawn a lot of attention and Democratic money, both could dry up after a decisive win next month. With longevity — and political safety — would come the opportunity for Boebert to build even more influence in the Republican Party.

“You can always lose,ā€ Saunders said. ā€œBut she could be in that seat for 20 years, very easily.”

The number of individuals who have served in the House of Representatives throughout the history of our nation is around 11,000. I consider it an honor and a privilege to be one of them.

If you had told me as a young boy, that I would be one of those chosen for that high honor, I wouldnā€™t have believed you. My parents, like most Hispanics of their generation, were not actively involved in politics because they believed that elected officials did not care about the struggles of Hispanic families and our way of life.

Fast forward to today, and I am a true testament to what is known by many as the American Dream. Immediately after high school I joined the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Holloman AFB where I met my beautiful wife, Lisa, of 36 years. We have two grown children who currently live in Colorado.

Iā€™ve served as Mayor of Parker, owned small businesses, and have established many meaningful friendships. Iā€™ve been incredibly blessed.

The question Iā€™ve been asked many times over the last two months of campaigning goes something like this: ā€œYouā€™ll only be there for six months, what can you actually get done in that short amount of time?ā€

It¶¶Ņõap a fair question. While I certainly hope to have the opportunity to vote on bills that would secure the border, protect our communities, and bring jobs to °ä“Ē±ō“Ē°ł²¹»å“Ēā€™s Fourth District, I donā€™t know that those opportunities will arise–especially during the last few months of an election year.

But hereā€™s what I can promise Iā€™ll do. I will work tirelessly to restore the trust and integrity of Congress. Congress is broken and the American people know it. Regularly Congress polls below a 15% approval rating. Politico once reported that more Americans preferred root canals than Congress.

To correct this sad reality, I pledge:

Not to buy, sell, or trade individual stocks.

Not to miss a single vote.

To put people over politics.

None of these commitments are mandated by Congress or required by the Constitution, but each of these commitments seem like the bare minimum for those who represent us.

The buying and selling of individual stocks has been abused by both parties, as members of Congress regularly beat the SPY average. In fact, one study found that 86% of Americans want to prohibit members from trading stock in individual companies. I couldnā€™t agree more, so that¶¶Ņõap exactly what Iā€™ll do.

In addition, most Americans may not know that members of Congress will skip votes on important pieces of legislation. Sometimes, they miss many votes. I commit to making sure that my constituents are represented in every single vote.

Finally, it seems like members of Congress are more divided than ever. Although this is more difficult to quantify than the previous two commitments, we all can see it. While in Congress, I will focus on building up, instead of tearing down. Iā€™ll prioritize policy above virality, civility above acclaim, and accomplishments above attention. In short, Iā€™ll put people over politics.

It¶¶Ņõap true, Iā€™ll only be in Congress for six months. But in those six months, I promise to serve with honor and dignity. I will keep these commitments and, God willing, Iā€™ll make the over 748,000 constituents I represent proud.

Greg Lopez lives in Elizabeth and was selected in a special election Tuesday night to replace U.S. Rep. Ken Buck as representative for Congressional District 4.

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