The two men left on the ballot for governor traded barbs in their victory speeches Tuesday night. The state’s Democratic and Republican parties launched websites the next day to blast their opponents. And one national political group debuted a television commercial to boost its candidate.

Looking to November, the primary voter turnout shows more Democratic momentum at this point, according to interviews with a dozen political observers. The party will need the energy if it wants to hold the governor’s office, flip the state Senate and claim the competitive 6th Congressional District – all races that Republicans are intent on winning.

“If you’re trying to gauge a blue wave or enthusiasm, I would say those numbers look pretty good for Democrats,” said Paul Teske, the dean of the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. “Midterm elections are always a referendum on the president, and we have a fairly unpopular president, probably more unpopular in Colorado than a lot of other states.”

Here’s a look at the lessons from the primary election and what they mean for Democrats and Republicans ahead of November.

The big shift starts now

The top-of-the-ticket primary races for Colorado governor finished Tuesday as expected, with Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Walker Stapleton securing their respective party nominations.

A modest surprise is the huge margin – 20 percentage points – by which Polis finished ahead of his closest rival in a race some observers expected to be closer.

The next key step is the selection of running mates within a week of the primary election. Once the gubernatorial candidates pick a lieutenant governor, the running mate under state law.

At the same time, the candidates will spend the summer months refocusing their campaigns for a general election audience, a move that typically shifts them to the political middle in order to win the swing voters that decide most Colorado races.

Stapleton spent much of his campaign aligning himself with President Donald Trump and raising concerns about so-called sanctuary cities that don’t assist federal immigration authorities.

David Flaherty, a Republican pollster in Colorado not affiliated with the campaign, said “without question” that Stapleton needs to move to the middle. “He will lose if he doesn’t, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty said general election voters want to hear about education and pocket-book issues, such as the cost of housing — two topics that the Democratic candidate has preached for months.

But Polis also will have to rework his image and distance himself from the inevitable label as “a Boulder liberal,” even as he seeks Democratic Party unity.

“His move needs to be as much stylistic as substantive,” said Eric Sondermann, a Denver political analyst. “He needs to show … that (his campaign) gets the whole state, that they are not just deeply stewed in that Boulder milieu.”

Largest primary turnout ever

The voter turnout rate for all registered voters — both active and inactive — through Thursday was 31 percent and is expected to rise slightly. It ranks as the largest primary turnout among registered voters at least in the past decade.

More ballots were cast in Tuesday’s election than in any other primary in Colorado, a result of the state’s booming population and the inclusion this year of unaffiliated voters. Also drawing people to the polls was the long list of competitive races, especially at the congressional and gubernatorial levels.

Through Thursday, 1,176,526 ballots were processed. Of those, 469,771 came from registered Democrats and 415,379 from registered Republicans.

Unaffiliated voters turned in 291,376 ballots in the first-ever Colorado primary elections��in which they could cast a ballot. That comes out to an unaffiliated turnout rate of about 20 percent for the state’s largest voting bloc — which has more than 1.4 million voters.

More of those voters took part in the Democratic primary than in the Republican primary by a margin of about 60,000, according to the latest data.

“They still have tens of thousands of ballots to process,” Judd Choate, elections director at the Colorado secretary of state’s office, said midweek.

For comparison, the most similar primary election in Colorado in the past decade — in terms of competitiveness and turnout rate– took place in 2010, when Democrats and Republicans competed for a U.S. Senate seat.

In that primary contest, 774,071 ballots were cast from among the state’s 2,391,825 active voters, for a 32 percent active-voter turnout rate. The turnout slides to 24 percent when adding in the state’s 850,000-plus inactive voters to the total.

Thousands of votes nullified

Ballots cast by at least 6,000 unaffiliated voters were nullified because they tried to vote in both the Republican and Democratic primary contests.

A voter-approved initiative from 2016 allowed unaffiliated voters to participate in a Colorado primary election for the first time this year, but members of the bloc were only allowed to cast a ballot in one race or the other. The canceled double-votes came despite a more than $1 million educational effort from the state and outside organizations to inform voters about the rules.

The numbers equaled about 2 percent of the total unaffiliated votes cast. That����ap far lower than state elections officials feared.

“This number of about 2 to 2.5 is a really pretty solid number, considering that our population has never done an election like this and other comparable states have seen slightly higher numbers,” said Choate.

El Paso County led the state’s largest counties, with 5 percent of unaffiliated ballots spoiled, while Adams County had just 0.5 percent of their unaffiliated votes nullified.

Officials say they will be taking a close look at what worked and what didn’t in order to minimize the spoil rate for unaffiliated voters in future elections.

“One of the things we will do is an after-action review of this election,” Choate said. “There are all sorts of things I think we can learn from this as we review it.”

For the most part, money talks

With one exception, all the statewide and congressional races were won by the candidate who spent the most money, according to preliminary numbers.

Polis spent $11 million of his own money in the governor’s race and came out the victor. He also received big-money help from two outside groups.

Stapleton appeared to be the lone exception. His rival, former state Rep. Victor Mitchell, loaned his campaign $4.8 million and easily outspent Stapleton and the handful of outside groups that came to his aid, according to preliminary campaign finance data.

In the 6th Congressional District race, Democrat Jason Crow spent $695,000 through June 6, compared with $254,000 for challenger Levi Tillemann.

One of the largest disparities came in the Republican state treasurer’s race, where businessman Brian Watson spent about $700,000 to overcome state Reps Justin Everett and Polly Lawrence, who spent roughly $81,000 and $292,000, respectively.

The gold-plated campaigning won’t stop in June.

The Republican Attorneys General Association plans to spend significantly to elect 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler in Colorado. The organization announced Wednesday its first television ad on Brauchler’s behalf, that will air across most the state.

Revenge of Democratic establishment

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Democratic presidential caucuses in Colorado in 2016, and his progressive wing of the party made national headlines Tuesday after voters snubbed establishment candidates for upstarts aligned with his wing of the party.

But in Colorado, that wasn’t the case.

In the Democratic primary for Colorado attorney general, Phil Weiser, a former University of Colorado Law School dean, defeated Sanders-endorsed state Rep. Joe Salazar, who conceded Saturday after a close vote.��State Rep. Dave Young overcame a challenge in the treasurer’s primary from first-time candidate and Sanders supporter Bernard Douthit.

Four Democratic upstarts — Mark Williams, Tillemann, Saira Rao and Karl Hanlon ��— also lost bids for Congress running on an outsider platform against their respective establishment-backed candidates, Joe Neguse (2nd district), Crow (6th district),��U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (1st district) and former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush (3rd district).

“The primary electorate remains, not surprisingly, more moderate than the noisiest and most active activists, as evidenced by the impressive wins for Neguse, Crow and Diane Mitsch Bush,” said Jim Carpenter, a Democratic strategist and chief of staff for former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. “Definitely more establishment candidates have done well. Weiser fits into this, too — so does Michael Dougherty in the Boulder (district attorney’s) race.”

Dougherty beat out state Rep. Mike Foote to become Boulder’s top prosecutor.

Women candidates finish about 50-50

The Colorado primary races saw a significant number of women candidates make bids for public office, many of them for the first time.

A female candidate won nine of the 17 races in which at least one woman competed, a Denver Post analysis shows. All but one of those women were Democrats.

Laura Chapin, a Democratic strategist, said the 53 percent win-record is just a matter of “sheer volume.”

“We’ve got a whole lot of women running, and some of them are going to win and some of them are going to lose … that still means more women in office,” she said.

But at the top of the ticket, three women – Republican Cynthia Coffman and Democrats Cary Kennedy and Donna Lynne – failed to win their party nominations for governor in a state that has never elected a woman to the post.

The results came despite more interest from women voters. About 100,000 more women voted than men in the primary election, according to figures through Thursday.

Pat Waak, the former state Democratic Party chairwoman, said she always wants to see more women win, but it takes a good candidate to cross the finish line first.

“I think there is a gender power that is growing,” she said, “but I think in the end, people just want somebody who will listen to them, understand what the issues are and make a difference on those issues.”

The Associated Press called the race shortly before 8 p.m., as the former����rmy Ranger held a 68 percent to 32 percent margin over Tillemann. Around 8:30 p.m., the��Colorado Secretary of State’s Office showed Crow with nearly 40,000 votes to Tillemann’s 19,000-plus.

Crow, 39, will face off against U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican who has held the congressional seat centered on Aurora for close to a decade, in November’s general election. The contest pits two military veterans against each other — Coffman is a former Marine and combat veteran.

Crow, at a boisterous victory party at Tequileno Mexican restaurant in Aurora, immediately went on the offensive against Coffman, calling him “a great investment in the status quo.” He said he is ready to dig in and oust the veteran Republican in November.

“Your inaction has failed this community and it’s time to go,” Crow said to loud applause in the restaurant, addressing his GOP opponent. “After fighting in the trenches for over a year, (my) team is battle-tested.”

Crow, an attorney with Holland and Hart, said he would tackle education inequality, work for universal and affordable health care and fight to reduce gun violence in the country.

“We are fighting to keep gun violence out of our schools and off of our streets,” he said.

He slammed Coffman for not speaking out enough on the Trump administration’s recently ended policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“A congressman has to do more than just tweet,” Crow told the crowd, who hissed and booed at the mention of Coffman’s name.

But the battle this fall will not be easy, as��Coffman has handily defeated a string of Democratic challengers over five election cycles, starting in 2008. That’s despite the fact that the district, which stretches from Brighton to Littleton and through demographically diverse Aurora,��is divided almost evenly among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.

On the other hand, Coffman’s fight to retain his seat for a sixth time running could be a particularly grueling affair, given the difficult political environment for the GOP this fall, which finds itself in a struggle to retain control of the House. The Cook Political Report ranks Colorado’s 6th Congressional District race ��while Inside Elections says it

Coffman’s campaign wasted no time in responding to Crow’s victory Tuesday. Campaign manager Tyler Sandberg called Crow “a white collar defense lawyer with a laundry list of shady criminal clients and a longer list of left-wing special interest financial backers that bought him the Democratic primary.”

Tillemann, in a phone interview Tuesday night, said he wished Crow the best “and I hope that he prevails against Mike Coffman in November.”

Tillemann, a businessman who grew up in Denver, made headlines in the race against Crow, first when he secretly��recorded — — a conversation he had in December with U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a political power broker and the second-ranking Democrat in the House, in which Hoyer told Tillemann that Crow was “the favorite” to win the Democratic nomination.

Then this month, Tillemann produced a graphic campaign ad in which he subjected himself to pepper spray in an attempt to show the kind of nonlethal resources teachers could use to protect classrooms during an active shooter scenario.

But Crow outdid Tillemann in fundraising, netting nearly $365,000 in the first three months of 2018 to just $52,000 raised by Tillemann. Coffman took in roughly $464,000 during the same period.

Sandberg, Coffman’s campaign manager, made reference to Tillemann’s campaign ad in a biting statement Tuesday night about Crow’s resounding victory.

“But still, congratulations to Jason Crow and Nancy Pelosi on defeating the guy who sprayed mace in his own face,” he said. “Mike Coffman and his army of supporters are ready for the next round.”

The results Tuesday will offer insights into voters’ moods and what to expect in November, when Republicans want to elect their party’s first governor since 2002 and Democrats want to hold the office and make gains in Congress and at the statehouse.

“This was the first wide-open gubernatorial race in many years in Colorado,” said Seth Masket, the director of the University of Denver’s Center on American Politics. “What kind of a match-up came out of the primary? Were voters prioritizing electability, commitment to party goals, or what?”

Those questions and more are at the center of the primary contests. Here’s a look at five questions that will get answers once the polls close.

Will GOP voters reward loyalty to Trump?

An allegiance to the president and his agenda became the defining theme of the Republican race for governor among the four candidates.

In the final debate, only one candidate, Doug Robinson, voiced clear opposition to the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The front-runner, state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, initially kept his distance from Trump but later embraced him in campaign commercials and attacked rival Victor Mitchell for supporting a third-party candidate. Meanwhile, Mitchell said he supports most of the president����ap policies and blasted Stapleton for being a relative of the Bush family that opposed Trump.

Unlike in other governor’s races across the country, Trump did not make an endorsement in ��DZ��ǰ������’s primary.

A similar dynamic emerged in the race for the Republican nomination for state treasurer, where vocal Never-Trump supporter and state Rep. Justin Everett faces Polly Lawrence, a fellow state lawmaker who signed a letter endorsing Trump despite expressing concerns about his comments regarding women.

How many voters will turn out in ��DZ��ǰ������’s more open primary?

Turnout for this primary could be much lower percentage-wise than in recent statewide election years, in part because more voters are eligible to cast ballots in the low-profile contests with the addition of unaffiliated voters.

As of Sunday night, 690,866 ballots had been cast by 267,620 registered Democrats and 261,686 registered Republicans. As for unaffiliated voters, 161,560 had cast ballots. (Turnout is expected to rise significantly.)

That����ap a turnout so far of just 18 percent of the state’s 3.8 million voters.

The first statewide vote-by-mail contest came in 2014, but only Republicans had a contested primary for governor. In 2010, the last election where s had , the turnout among the state’s roughly 2.4 million active voters was 32 percent, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

That����ap because of the addition of 1.4 million unaffiliated voters who can cast ballots in a Colorado primary for the first time this year, raising the number of eligible participants. Turnout for that voting bloc, the state’s largest, is expected to be lower than for registered Democrats and Republicans because they are generally less interested in the partisan races.

Through Sunday night, women were outvoting men by more than 50,000 ballots, with Democratic women as the largest gender-based voting bloc. Unaffiliated voters, who can only cast a ballot in one party’s primary, have been choosing to participate in the Democratic primary over the GOP one.

Will Democrats go too far in embracing Bernie Sanders?

Opposite the Republican races, the Democratic candidates are veering to the left to embrace policies often identified with former presidential contender Bernie Sanders and the party’s left-wing.

The candidates for governor all want to expand health care access to make it universal, with front-runner��Jared Polis endorsing a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system despite the fact Colorado rejected a similar proposal on the 2016 ballot. Polis, a five-term Boulder congressman, would be the nation’s first openly gay man elected governor if he wins the primary and general elections.

Two of the gubernatorial candidates — Polis and former state Sen. Mike Johnston — pledged to move the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, while former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy wants to double the state’s renewable-energy mandate for utility companies. The fourth candidate, Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, is taking a more moderate approach to major issues, but so far found little traction for her campaign.

In two other high-profile Democratic races, Sanders is playing a direct role.

The independent senator from Vermont has endorsed state Rep. Joe Salazar, who is vying to become ��DZ��ǰ������’s next attorney general, and a political group affiliated with Sanders is backing Levi Tillemann in the 6th Congressional District. Both candidates are running insurgent campaigns to beat establishment Democrats backed by the party’s leaders.

Tillemann faces Denver attorney Jason Crow, another establishment favorite who has won backing from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose decision to pick sides in an intramural fight drew national attention.

A real battle for Diana DeGette?

There’s another establishment-vs.-outsider battle in ��DZ��ǰ������’s 1st Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, is facing one of her most serious challenges in her 20-plus years in Congress.

Saira Rao, a first-generation Indian-American and former Wall Street lawyer who now runs a business publishing children’s books written by authors from underrepresented backgrounds, got into the race in January calling for a new voice in the U.S House.

She’s relatively new to Colorado, only having lived here for 5 years, and has even aided DeGette’s campaigns in the past.

But, Rao says, DeGette wasn’t doing enough to push back after Trump’s election.

“To say I was very disappointed by the response by the establishment Democrats is an understatement,” she said. “… She hasn’t fought for disenfranchised communities.”

Rao has spent a formidable $415,000-plus on getting her message and name out (also loaning her campaign $100,000), a sum that DeGette has countered with more than $720,000 of spending of her own this cycle.

DeGette, her party’s chief deputy whip, is waving off Rao’s attacks and said she is best positioned to represent Colorado in the U.S. House, given her long track record, adding that if Democrats retake the chamber in November she will be poised for larger leadership roles.

With the Denver district being a Democratic stronghold, whoever wins Tuesday’s primary contest will almost definitely be the winner in November.

Will big-spending super PACs and wealthy candidates claim victories?

A week before the election, candidates in the Colorado governor’s race spent nearly $25 million and outside organizations that can accept unlimited donations spent at least $12 million more to boost their favorite contenders, according to state campaign finance records.

Put another way, that’s about $86 spent for every ballot cast through June 18. The number of ballots and the amount spent on the race are only expected to increase in a contest that is setting early spending records.

Polis spent $11 million of his own money on the race and received an additional $1.6 million in help from two outside groups, a super PAC called Bold Colorado and the environmental organization Sierra Club. Johnston spent $2 million from his campaign, and an outside super PAC spent more than $5 million more to support his bid.

On the Republican side, Mitchell’s campaign spent $4.7 million — most of it from the candidate’s wallet, while Stapleton spent $2 million. To close the gap, five organizations worked on Stapleton’s behalf spent another $2 million, most of which went toward attacks on his rivals.

Welcome back to The Spot, where The Denver Post’s politics team captures what’s happening this week — from the Colorado legislature to Denver city hall, with a stop through the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Colorado and its politicos have been in the national spotlight over the past week, from our congressional delegation’s take on the U.S.-North Korea summit to marijuana and more fallout from last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

Two of the Trump administration’s top officials — U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt — came to Denver on an “I����President Donald Trump tour” (not actually, it was the Western Conservative Summit) and Colorado’s Republican congressman from Aurora is a central figure in the GOP’s U.S. House immigration battle.

Scott Pruitt on Trump administration approach to environment: “This is an example that you can have your cake and eat it too. Those folks who say you can’t, I don’t understand that. What else you supposed to do with cake?”

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

At home, big development is on the horizon for downtown Denver and another sales tax increase could be on the city’s November ballot, while homelessness has become an issue in Parker.

In the governor’s race, two polls are��showing some front-runners. And if this election cycle hasn’t been crazy enough for you already, a Democrat running for a chance to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman released a video of himself being willingly pepper sprayed in an effort to introduce a policy to halt school shootings.

Now that your eyes sting, onto the news!

Fresh news:��Wildfires are burning across Colorado. So why is one of the world’s largest air tankers grounded in Colorado Springs?

ROLL CALL

COLORADO: THE STATEHOUSE & BEYOND

• Marijuana advocates and state lawmakers are blasting Gov. Hickenlooper over his veto of three cannabis bills.
• Part of Colorado’s campaign finance complaint process is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.
• The oil and gas industry is worried a statewide ballot initiative to widen the buffer between drilling and development could cost $180 billion in lost petroleum production and $26 billion in lost royalties, according to a study.
• A severe anti-growth measure — one that would limit new construction to 1 percent of current housing stock throughout the metro area — appears to be all but lifeless for the 2018 election.
• In Colorado, death is sometimes just the beginning of the��story. (Trust me, you’re going to want to read this one.)
• A look at the��intersection of blockchain technology and regulation in Colorado.
• A novel CBD pharmaceutical drug — if approved by the FDA — will have a path to pharmacies in Colorado.
• The first Colorado primary ballots are being counted in a governor’s race where polls show clear favorites. (The election is June 26.)

So far, 134,038 Coloradans have turned in ballots. We're working on getting the report to you.

— Colorado Sec. of State (@COSecofState)

Election coverage

I’m just going to leave this here for another week for those still trying to make up their minds before June 26…

• A guide to the 2018 primary for unaffiliated voters
• Election 2018 stories
• Who is running for Colorado governor?
• Colorado governor’s race stories
• Who is running for Colorado treasurer?
• A secret recording, a Bronze Star and “The Royal Tenenbaums” — the Democratic race to unseat Mike Coffman is flush with personality, politics
• Who is running for Colorado attorney general?
• Colorado attorney general’s race stories
• Democrats running for Colorado attorney general are aligned on the issues — but not on how to solve them
• Five things to know about Phil Weiser
• Five things to know about state Rep. Joe Salazar

DENVER & THE SUBURBS

• Denver officials have seized more than 250 electric scooters from the city’s streets and begun to levy fines.
• Denver police will launch a program to collect racial data on people during stops.
• Denver city leaders this week��approved a plan that sets the stage for a brand-new urban neighborhood��to rise atop downtown’s biggest parking crater. But … that might mean the relocation of Elitch Gardens.
• Arvada looked all over the country for its new police chief, only to settle on a familiar face.
• “The Boulder City Council will look at bringing dockless bikes and public broadband to the city.”
• ���� campaign finance complaint alleging that the Denver City Council’s president, Albus Brooks, misused city resources��has gotten caught in a gap.
• A city councilman in Denver��has an idea to expand the park system: Increase sales taxes.
• But with several other tax questions vying for the city’s ballot this fall, passing the measure��may not be so simple.
• Denver��is among 23 cities vying to host soccer matches��in the North America-hosted 2026 World Cup.
• Jefferson County’s The Action Center will shutter its 22-bed homeless shelter in Lakewood this weekend due to budgetary constraints.
• Denver’s strategy to keep renters from becoming homeless now includes��City Council-paid legal help for low-income tenants facing eviction.
• Parker last week became the latest city in the metro area to ban urban camping— and the town’s measure sounds a�� lot like anti-camping laws passed by Boulder and Denver in years past

D.C. POLITICS FROM A COLORADO PERSPECTIVE

• U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner thinks it would be a “really bad idea” for President Donald Trump to try to pardon himself.
• U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s father has died.

My brother James, sister Holly, and I regret to announce that our father, Douglas J. Bennet, Jr., died peacefully yesterday. Here is a statement from us:

— Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet)

• Levi Tillemann took a bunch of pepper spray right to his face in a new campaign video that’s part of the Democrat’s bid in the 6th Congressional District.
• What happens when an immigration detainee wants to donate an organ? A Colorado case could provide answers.
• Cory Gardner vs. Vice President Mike Pence = Will U.S.-South Korea war games continue?
• ��DZ��ǰ������’s under bill introduced by U.S. Sens. Cory Gardner and Elizabeth Warren.
• And the measure already has .
• Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Thornton Mayor Heidi Williams are among U.S. mayors��leading the charge to pressure the federal government��into relaxing some marijuana restrictions.
• U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt made informercial-like pitches on Trump in Denver on Friday as they spoke at the Western Conservative Summit.��
• Meanwhile, not everyone was so keen on Sessions��and the friction between him and the president at last weekend’s conference.

THE WIRE

• See��how Denver’s traffic engineers ��on downtown streets.��— Westword
• Political outsiders are testing 2020 presidential runs. So where does that leave someone like, say, Gov. John Hickenlooper? — The Washington Post
• A proposed ordinance would in Colorado Springs.��— The Colorado Springs Independent
• A woman for drawing a protest message in chalk outside of U.S. Rep. Ken Buck’s office. — Denver7
• What happens to a rural town after it l? — The New York Times
• That’s an idea Denver Post photographer RJ Sangosti explored in the small Colorado town of Karval. Check out his 2016 project. — The Denver Post
• Cory Gardner on the . — Colorado Public Radio
• The much-loved — or loathed — scooters startups taking over Denver’s sidewalks�� of locals��to charge the devices each night.��— BusinessDen
• Water is leaving Colorado farmland for the city. ? — KUNC
• Denver’s school board is from its school closure policy. — Chalkbeat

Questions, comments, feedback about this newsletter? Cool stories?��Send them our way.

And thanks for reading!

P.S.��Please consider backing The Denver Post () or journalism wherever you might be. And thanks for your support, whatever it might be.

P.P.S. Here is your GIF rewards for making it to the end of this newsletter.

How mornings feel when I'm on the copy editing shift:

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

How it feels around 9 p.m. when I'm on the copy editing shift:

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

Staff writers John Frank, Jon Murray, Mark K. Matthews and John Aguilar contributed to this newsletter.

Levi Tillemann, who is vying for a chance to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, in the 6th Congressional District wants to place pepper spray and other nonlethal weapons in schools��to thwart active shooters and other potential threats.

It����ap his alternative to calls from some conservatives to arm teachers with guns to protect their students.

“Wow, that����ap intense,” Tillemann says in the video, as he douses his face in soapy water and sprays his intensely red eyes with a garden hose after being hit in the face with pepper spray.

The roughly 2-minute spot features an Aurora Public School board member, , saying “common-sense” gun regulations aren’t enough to keep students safe as he endorses the proposal.

But the video is raising a lot of and in , as Tillemann faces a well-funded and establishment-backed Democratic primary opponent in Denver attorney Jason Crow. ����nd at least one school-safety group that����ap pro-gun control — along with the state’s largest teachers organization — aren’t fully embracing Tillemann’s idea.

Ken Toltz, who co-founded the organization Safe Campus Colorado, called the video “a mad-cap stunt” and said he couldn’t really take the idea seriously.

“I couldn’t even watch it a second time because it����ap reckless and irresponsible to film that kind of stunt and put it on Facebook,” said Toltz, a fellow Democrat who made an unsuccessful bid in the 6th Congressional District in 2000.

Amie Baca-Oehlert, vice president of the Colorado Education Association, also pushed back on the concept, saying the money it would take to implement such an idea would be better spent elsewhere.

“We are for having mental health supports in school,” she said, explaining that the union has taken a similar position on arming teachers with guns.

Tillemann rejected criticism of the video and defended the spot as the result of his campaign’s hard work to stop school violence. They initially considered more police K-9s in schools — to sniff out gunpowder and stop assailants — as a primary proposal before switching over to pepper spray.

“We are at a political impasse when it comes to this topic,” he said. “Dozens and dozens of kids are being gunned down in this country. …The solutions that are being offered by both Democrats and Republicans aren’t working. That����ap why I sat down with my team and we thought through ways that we could get around the talking points that have been mouthed by party apparatchik for decades. This was the best solution that we could come up with.”

Cox, the school board member, agrees. “Something is better than nothing, I think, and this is a very inexpensive solution,” he said, adding that pepper spray can quickly be incorporated in schools.

Tillemann says his idea came after consultation with the medical and criminal justice communities. It would involve training for educators and storing pepper spray in a safe way in classrooms. “This will stop anyone in their tracks,” he says in the video.

“I love to hear people calling this a stunt without calling this a viable alternative,” he said to a Denver Post reporter. “If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have been on the phone right now.”

Tillemann says he consulted with medical professionals and law enforcement before filming the video last week in his brother’s backyard. (“This is dangerous — Do not attempt,” a disclaimer reads in the video.)

“I would say, without a doubt, it was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my entire life,” he said. “Nothing compares to this.”

Unusual political ads and videos aren’t new to Colorado — although Tillemann’s is probably the most painful a candidate in the state has endured in recent memory.

In April, Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, a Democratic candidate for governor, got a tattoo in an effort to sway voters.

Gov. John Hickenlooper, when he was mayor of Denver, jumped out of an airplane in 2008 to try to persuade voters to back a statewide tax reform measure.

The primary election is June 26.

Welcome back to The Spot, where The Denver Post’s politics team captures what’s happening this week — from the Colorado legislature to Denver city hall, with a stop through the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Howdy, politics party people! And welcome back.

With a few more hours of sleep under our belts, The Denver Post’s crackerjack politics team has turned out some deep dives this week on everything from the Colorado Supreme Court to toll lanes and the people who have so much money to spare they can pour it into the state’s wild and crazy governor’s race.

Meanwhile, it seems like everyone in Colorado has a job��(even though Chipotle is bailing on us) and if you smell a fire in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, we’ve got the 411 on why.

Oh, and BTW: Your dog’s pee is killing downtown trees. And Denver is pissed. (Yes, we just made that pun. Deal with it.)

Fresh news:��Denver’s affordable-apartment program is finally ready to launch — smaller and later than Mayor Michael Hancock first intended.

ROLL CALL

COLORADO: THE STATEHOUSE & BEYOND

• The top 10 donors in the 2018 election favor Democrat Mike Johnston and the oil and gas industry.
• Gov. John Hickenlooper has three people to choose from for an open Colorado Supreme Court seat. We took a deep dive into their backgrounds and experience.
• Colorado’s unemployment rate is low. Like, really, really low.
• Voters could be asked in November to raise Colorado’s state sales tax by 0.62 percent to pay for infrastructure needs.
• A breakdown of who is running for Colorado treasurer in 2018.
• Stay on top of candidates in the other statewide races with our look at who is running for attorney general and who is running for governor.
• Democrat Phil Weiser is making a major television ad buy in the attorney general’s race primary.
• Colorado prisons say they could run out of room next year. Lawmakers say they’ve heard the alarm before and can’t write “blank checks”
• Aspen’s 20-cent surcharge on paper grocery bags is a fee, not a tax, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled this week.
• Colorado’s largest utility��has cut carbon emissions 35 percent since 2005.
• Should Colorado allow campaigns to accept cryptocurrency donations?
• The Colorado Civil Rights Commission will keep operating into 2027, after Gov. Hickenlooper signed a bill reauthorizing the panel.

DENVER & THE SUBURBS

• The politics of toll roads are heating up big time in El Paso County, where the mostly conservative-leaning residents who live there are throwing up stiff resistance to a plan for Interstate 25 by CDOT.
• A city assistance program that helped people facing rent hikes and other housing cost crises was nearly overwhelmed by the demand. This week,��Denver city leaders approved a $1 million extension.
• And there’s a new face overseeing Denver’s affordable housing policies, as Mayor Michael Hancock��named his new chief housing officer.
• Chipotle is ing out��of Colorado.

We wish all the best. We want their existing employees to know we have services that can help them find new jobs.

— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO)

• Remember Thornton’s plan for a 70-mile-long water pipe extending from the Poudre River to Colorado’s fifth-largest city that you read about here in The Spot last week?
• Well, Larimer County’s planning commission wasn’t happy with the city’s proposal and recommended last Wednesday that officials reject it when they look at it in July.
• Denver’s city rules call for officials to fly coach, but in certain cases Mayor Michael Hancock, his staff and the City Council flew business class on trips organized by Denver International Airport.
• Longmont approved a $3 million deal to end oil and gas surface drilling in the city.
• Denver’s urban neighborhoods now have a New York- and Chicago-style problem: As new residents pack into high-rises in the city’s urban neighborhoods, the dogs they’re bringing��are killing grass and trees with pee.
• Want to buy a place in Denver’s trendy��Union Station neighborhood for under $300,000? (This isn’t an Onion article.)
• Speaking of housing, homeowners in hundreds of Denver’s deed-restricted affordable homes face a tough decision. Reporter Joe Rubino breaks down why.
• Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan was remembered at an emotional memorial last weekend.
• Meanwhile, the Aurora City Council now has until��June 27 to choose Hogan’s replacement.

D.C. POLITICS FROM A COLORADO PERSPECTIVE

• Colorado businesses are hurting while the feds delay issuing seasonal work visas.
• Democratic voters across the U.S. are embracing candidates with compelling life stories in the 2018 primary elections.
• How months of inaction led U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, and other Republicans to��take a stand on immigration.
• For years, Democrats have been united in their (failed) efforts to dislodge Republican Mike Coffman from his Aurora-area House seat. This year is different, as two Democrats are going .

THE WIRE

• So what makes a neighborhood organization effective? Well,��it helps to , for one.��— Denverite
• U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, “” when asked if he wants President Donald Trump to campaign for him. — McClatchy
• Think you’re smarter than the so-called “experts” out there? Think the internet can provide answers of the same quality as the intellectual crowd, like scientists and scholars? Yeah, . — Foreign Affairs
• Primary debates for the Colorado governor’s race (We have a few scheduled, too. Stay tuned…) — 9News
• A poll shows incumbent U.S. Rep. in the GOP primary for his congressional seat. — Magellan Strategies
• State lawmakers are facing in decades. (Colorado Democrats have a candidate in every statehouse race.)��— Governing
• There’s a in the high $$$ Colorado governor’s race. — Colorado Public Radio��
• Why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy central to the Masterpiece Cakeshop Case. — Colorado Public Radio
• Denver��is hosting nearly 6,000 travel planners, travel writers and other industry leaders��in .��— 9News
• Walker Stapleton takes the hot seat on Fox News — . — Fox News

Questions, comments, feedback about this newsletter? Cool stories?��Send them our way.

And thanks for reading!

P.S.��Please consider backing The Denver Post () or journalism wherever you might be. And thanks for your support, whatever it might be.

P.P.S. Here is your GIF reward for making it to the end of this newsletter.

How I've felt since the legislative session ended.

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

How I've felt since realizing we have 10 million 2018 races to cover and catch up on

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

Staff writers John Frank, Jon Murray, Mark K. Matthews and John Aguilar contributed to this newsletter.

The roll of the dice comes in the form of a Tillemann made — and subsequently leaked — of a conversation he had in December with U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a political power broker and the second-ranking Democrat in the House.

“Crow’s clearly the favorite,” Hoyer said in the recording, pointing to��the party leadership’s preference to face five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman. “That doesn’t mean he’ll win. That just means he’s the favorite.”

Faced with that headwind and a steep fundraising disadvantage, Tillemann said he broke decorum and made public the secret recording to “shine a light on the inner workings of democracy” — a move that could burnish his image as an anti-establishment candidate.

Crow, a 39-year-old attorney with the firm Holland and Hart, sees the episode as something else: an example of how much his style differs from Tillemann’s.

“The biggest difference is on our approach and how we lead,” said Crow, a former Army Ranger. “I learned a long time ago — leading soldiers in combat — that it����ap better and more enduring to build than to tear down.”

With just weeks left in the race, Tillemann has doubled down on that outsider approach by trying to position himself as the true progressive in the Democratic primary — arguing��that he, not Crow, would pursue the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

“Crow supports whatever the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) tells him to support,” Tillemann said.

Whether this is the right strategy and whether��Tillemann is��the right messenger are questions primary voters will answer June 26.

But no matter who wins, Democrats still must contend with history: Despite their best efforts, Coffman has cruised to re-election in recent years even though the Aurora-area seat is divided almost evenly among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.

“Mike is one of the best campaigners I’ve ever met,” said Joe Miklosi, who lost to Coffman in 2012.

A possible difference this year is that Democratic opposition to Trump could swell in an electoral wave come November, sweeping up Coffman and other Republicans — although nonpartisan political analysts by no means see the race as a slam dunk.

The Cook Political Report rates the race for ��DZ��ǰ������’s 6th Congressional District as a . Inside Elections says it “.”

But Crow believes he has the winning formula.

“It has to do with my lifetime of service to this country and community,” said Crow, who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As part of his service in Iraq, Crow was awarded the Bronze Star.

“Our battalion, our regiment of the 82nd (Airborne Division) was tasked with going in and capturing the city of As Samawah,” Crow said.

Specifically, his role was helping to secure a highway bridge over the Euphrates River.

“My platoon was ordered to the front to take the lead in the mission, and after some pretty heavy street-to-street fighting, my platoon ended up pushing all the way to bridge,” he said.

Crow, however, said he now disagrees with the decision to go to war with Iraq – one plank of a platform that overlaps some, but not all, of the more liberal Tillemann’s.

“The intelligence was inaccurate,” Crow said. “We were misled by the (George W.) Bush administration. … There turned out not to be weapons of mass destruction. And we have seen in the decade that has followed that (decision) has destabilized the entire region.”

On a number of issues, Crow and Tillemann have taken similar, if not parallel, positions.

Both have advocated for a ban on assault weapons. Tillemann,��an adviser in the Obama administration’s U.S. Energy Department, wants to make 2035 a goal for 100 percent renewable electricity; Crow’s platform aims to “transition to 50 percent clean energy by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050.”

But there a few key distinctions.

Tillemann is emphatic about impeaching Trump; Crow is noncommittal. Tillemann has been forceful about a single-payer health care system, to be run through Medicaid or Medicare, while Crow has pushed ideas such as a federal public option.

There’s another major difference: fundraising. With the support of national Democrats, Crow is crushing Tillemann in campaign cash, according to federal records.

As of March 31, Crow had netted several times as much: more than $1.2 million vs. about $278,000 — although Tillemann says financial support has ticked up since the Hoyer tape was by The Intercept.

Still, Crow’s haul puts him closer to Coffman, who has collected nearly $1.7 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Asked what he thought was the biggest issue in the race, Crow cited two: partisanship and campaign finance reform, including finding a way to counteract the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Citizens United that has led to a flood of corporate money in U.S. elections.

“Until we get money out of politics, we are not going to truly representative folks in Congress,” Crow said.

As for Tillemann, his unorthodox approach to politics may come from a dynamic upbringing.

He grew up in Denver with 10 brothers and sisters and a steady stream of foreign exchange students; he estimates more than 200 in all.

Much of the education he and his siblings received was a mix of classes and home-schooling, he said, and many of them went to college early, including Tillemann, who started Regis University at age 15 and transferred to Yale a year later.

“I have a fantastic and complicated family,” said Tillemann, whose clan once was described by Westword as “,” in a reference to a 2001 Wes Anderson film.

That included his father, Timber Dick, an inventor who died in 2008 from injuries sustained in a car crash.

Tillemann said one of his father’s passions was the development of a more efficient vehicle engine, a project that Tillemann took up for a few years – although the effort never came to fruition.

“There were some pretty serious problems with the design,” he said.

Tillemann boasts some political lineage too. An uncle and grandfather both served in Congress. His grandmother, Nancy Dick, was ��DZ��ǰ������’s first female lieutenant governor.

Yet that background hasn’t helped him much in this race, and his release of the Hoyer tape ultimately could cost him if he loses and ever wants to run again.

Asked about the controversy in April, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Hoyer and questioned the legality of Tillemann’s actions.

“I don’t know that a person can tape a person without the person’s consent and then release it to the press,” she . (Under Colorado law, it����ap like he did).

But Tillemann said he did it because he believed it was wrong for national Democrats to mess in his race and other local primaries.

“The reason I decided to release the tape,” he said, “was because I knew it wasn’t just happening to me.”

Welcome back to The Spot, where The Denver Post’s politics team captures what’s happening this week — from the Colorado legislature to Denver city hall, with a stop through the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.

State lawmakers used up every minute (almost literally) of the 2018 legislative session, delving deep into the eleventh hour Wednesday night to pass some of their most controversial and important bills this year — from a PERA fix to rules on where people can buy and��drink beer and the future of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

But, hey, at least we’re done for a few months, right?! I’m just trying not to fall asleep at my desk…

We took deep dives in the past week into the question of whether Democrats can finally use gun control to dislodge U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s vise grip on his 6th Congressional District seat, slot homes in Denver��and whether opioid legislation passed at the Capitol will really make a difference.

Residents in several Denver-area counties will finally see a longtime fee go away, and there’s a really sad update about Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan (who we’re keeping in our thoughts).

Fresh news:��Colorado lawmakers vote to rescue PERA from the fiscal brink — and reach deals on beer and civil rights — as 2018 legislative session closes.

ROLL CALL

COLORADO: THE STATEHOUSE & BEYOND

• The package of bills to address the opioid crisis in Colorado passed. But will they make a difference?
• The��highly contentious beer bill came down to the legislative session’s final day.
• State Sen. Randy Baumgardner was stripped of several committee positions at the legislature in the wake of a new report on an investigation into harassment allegations against him.
• Facilitating a vote trade will be illegal in Colorado under a bill seeking to address a trend that’s been around at least since the 2000 presidential election.
• After all the hoopla, state lawmakers have passed a transportation funding bill.
• Here’s how the road funding compromise came about.
• Phil Weiser is still winning the fundraising fight against Rep. Joe Salazar in the Democratic primary for the Colorado attorney general’s race. The cash-on-hand margin? More than $800,000.
• (Here’s who is running to become Colorado’s next attorney general.)
• Children’s autopsy reports would no longer be available for public view under the Colorado Open Records Act if Gov. John Hickenlooper signs this bill on his desk.
• Members of the Colorado board that decides how the state’s sex offenders are managed no longer will be able to profit from multimillion-dollar state contracts
• Colorado lawmakers approved — and then rejected — a bill to distinguish blockchain tokens from securities.
• ��DZ��ǰ������’s shuttered solitary confinement prison will remain closed for the foreseeable future, the AP reports.
• Certain mom-and-pop sweepstakes arcades would be outlawed under a bill that passed the legislature.
• Licensed marijuana “tasting rooms” could be operating in Colorado by this time next year.

Rep. Matt Gray, D-Broomfield, has skills. (Though I think he is going to try and keep his day job.)

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

DENVER & THE SUBURBS

• Aurora Mayor . He announced in March that he was diagnosed with cancer.

• A land use battle has been brewing in Parker over the last year that culminated in a decision by town leaders to annex land expressly to stop a trash transfer and recycling facility from locating on its border.
• Don’t think the fate of 59 acres of federally owned land in Lakewood has been decided. Last week, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless sued — for the second time — to stop the feds from selling the land at auction.
• Are you one of those who believes that once a tax or fee is put in place it never goes away? Think again. Residents in several Denver-area counties will be able to keep a few extra bucks.
• Denver Mayor Michael Hancock��apologized this week for his 22-year-old son’s treatment��of an Aurora police officer during a traffic stop.

• The Colorado Symphony has worked hard to shore up longstanding financial problems in the last few years. Now the city of Denver��is helping the symphony stay in the black.
• A year after ��DZ��ǰ������’s “most expensive insured catastrophe” — in the form of a hail storm centered largely on Jefferson County — Colorado Mills mall is still recovering.
• Park Hill residents have fought Denver’s parks department for more than a year to stop a land swap with a developer that will affect a planned pocket park.��On Wednesday,��the city dug in on the idea.
• Slot homes are no longer an option for developers in Denver after the City Council��outlawed the current form from the zoning code��this week.
• But for some neighborhoods,��the city’s action comes too late.

D.C. POLITICS FROM A COLORADO PERSPECTIVE

• Denver Congresswoman Diana DeGette questioned drug distributors��on Tuesday��over their role in fueling the opioid crisis, including those with a footprint in Colorado.
• Colorado’s congressional delegation was split in their reaction to President Donald Trump’s decision to ditch the Iran nuclear deal.
• California is moving to require solar panels on all homes.
• Legalizing and taxing marijuana boosts government revenue – a little, a new report says.
• A��Colorado woman is among five military wives who were threatened by Russian hackers who posed as Islamic State militants.
• Will growing calls for gun control lead to Mike Coffman’s ouster in 2018? Democrats have been unable to use the issue to win in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District before, but this year they think it will help them unseat the five-term GOP congressman.
• Speaking of Mike Coffman, he is again trying to force a vote on DACA legislation��that would aid immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

THE WIRE

• ��DZ��ǰ������’s governor’s race is one of the many across the country among women who are running. — The New York Times
• The dark side of Colorado’s Safe2Tell program — and what . —��CBS4
• Pueblo, a steel town that voted for Trump, banks . — E&E News
• Denver police��are giving homeless people ��as the city tries to crack down on urban camping.��— Denverite
• Target����for its small-format store on Denver’s 16th Street Mall.��— 9News
• Could his ties to Donald Trump haunt the lone GOP candidate for New Mexico governor? — The Associated Press
• Eagle, Summit county businesses are�� to back a wilderness bill. — The Vail Daily
• that led to New York Attorney General Eric��Schneiderman’s resignation. — The New Yorker
• A county in southern Colorado . Here’s how. — Colorado Public Radio
• Larimer County’s only — and there’s no replacement yet. — KUNC
• Will the�� its Clean Water Act lawsuit against Colorado Springs? — The Colorado Springs Independent

Questions, comments, feedback about this newsletter? Cool stories?��Send them our way.

And thanks for reading!

P.S.��Please consider backing The Denver Post () or journalism wherever you might be. And thanks for your support, whatever it might be.

P.P.S. Here is your GIF reward for making it to the end of this newsletter.

What the final day of has felt like so far:

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul)

Staff writers John Frank, Jon Murray, Mark K. Matthews and John Aguilar contributed to this newsletter.

These tragedies have produced some of the nation’s loudest calls for tighter gun control in the past two decades, yet voters in the metro Denver district have in the past five elections backed Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights and someone who has won .

This juxtaposition is one that Democrats in their latest effort to dislodge the incumbent — a potentially risky move in a state where firearms are often a political third rail and an issue that hasn’t helped the party win the 6th Congressional District seat .

But gun control advocates and others on the left say it may work in November because they see a shift in attitudes toward firearm regulations in the wake of recent shootings, such as the one at a Parkland, Fla., high school that sparked a series of marches in Washington, D.C., Denver and many other cities across the U.S. and around the world.

The end result is an election that is being ��by the major parties and advocates on both sides of the issue for signs whether gun control can be part of a winning strategy for liberal candidates in Colorado and across the nation.

“People are running on this issue,”��, the husband of former Arizona congresswoman and gun-violence survivor Gabby Giffords, said during a recent Colorado stop to promote attorney Jason Crow, one of the Democrats who want to challenge Coffman this fall.

“We can win,” Kelly, a former astronaut,�� added. “We can win at the ballot box, and then pass safer legislation. … The politics on this issue is changing, and it����ap changing pretty quickly.”

So is this election cycle the one where gun control helps Democrats break through? Or will pursuing the issue hamper what is otherwise shaping up to be a good year for the party, with of announced Republican departures from Congress, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, amid broader GOP turmoil?

“Democrats are making the bet that somehow, post-Parkland, times have changed,” said Eric Sondermann, an independent political analyst in Denver. “They didn’t change post-Columbine, they didn’t change post-Sandy Hook and they didn’t change after a dozen other incidents. In the past, not only did the issue not work, but if you flash back to the early part of this century, there was a backlash to this issue.”

Coffman’s seat, which he has maintained with a vise grip, has long been a target of Democrats and a because of its apparent vulnerability for Republicans. Hillary Clinton in 2016, and President Barack Obama in his re-election year of 2012.��

Yet Coffman has been able to fight off challenger after well-funded challenger by mostly large margins since taking office in 2008.

And while the district����ap boundaries and demographics have changed — Columbine hasn’t been within its confines since the 2010 election cycle — Democrats have despite their .

There are signs, however, that Republicans are at least paying attention to the idea that firearm regulation could be an influence in the 6th Congressional District this year. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect party members to the U.S. House, recently because the law firm where he is a partner has represented the firearms industry. (Crow’s campaign said he never had anything to do with the lobbying arm of his firm.)

Some polls have shown growing support for tighter gun restrictions, and there has been increased activism — much of it in the widely attended “March for Our Lives” events six weeks ago.

Crow, an Army veteran who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the Democratic front-runner in the race to unseat Coffman. He says gun control is among the top issues in his campaign.

“There’s no risk embracing this, and I’m not afraid to take a leadership role on this issue,” Crow said. “This is something that I’m hearing a lot when I’m out in the community. I’m hearing this issue come up a lot because parents are fed up with being afraid to send their kids to school, teachers are afraid to go to work and teach their kids in this environment, and kids are afraid to go to school.”

Crow is calling for expanded background checks before gun sales, a ban on high-capacity magazines and bump stocks and on military-style weapons and their accessories. He also wants to bar people on the federal “no fly” list from buying guns, ease the restriction on federal gun-violence research and enact a “red flag” law that would let judges take firearms away from people they deem to be a threat to themselves or others.

Levi Tillemann, ��another Democrat who wants to challenge Coffman this year, seeks to go even further. Tillemann wants to mandate a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases and create laws that dictate how firearms must be stored.

“You don’t need a gun faster than 10 days,” the former Obama administration official said. “If you need a gun faster than 10 days, you need a police officer, not a gun.”

Over his congressional career, Coffman has received more than $30,000 in direct contributions from the NRA and thousands more in outside spending by the organization. He also by the group with an “A” rating for his votes, . Those include his support for legislation to make state concealed-carry permits .

While the NRA money is just a small portion of the roughly $15 million Coffman has raised since he was first voted into office in 2008, it has nevertheless been a target this year of Democrats and gun control advocates. Crow has called for Coffman , and a in Aurora highlighting the funds.

However, guns don’t seem to be playing a central role in Coffman’s re-election campaign. At a district assembly recently, he didn’t delve into the gun control debate while speaking to party insiders who ultimately got him on the ballot.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” the former Marine and combat veteran told The Denver Post. “I think there are some reasonable restrictions around the Second Amendment. Of course, I think the big thing is enforcing the laws that we already have and getting the system to work that we have now. It doesn’t seem to be working.”

For all the Democratic attacks claiming Coffman isn’t tough enough on guns, the congressman says he is working on a prospective federal “red flag” law, like the one supported by Crow.

He has also urged the Trump administration to ban bump stocks and, after a Texas church massacre involving a shooter who received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force, he pushed the military to make sure it was properly reporting people who shouldn’t be able to purchase guns.

On top of his congressional action, Coffman also has been discussing gun violence with students, school superintendents, school security officials and others since the beginning of March to hear their concerns and figure out what preventive steps can be taken.

The shooting at the Waffle House this weekend has made clear the need for red flag laws in this country.

— Mike Coffman (@RepMikeCoffman)

He disagrees, however, with any prospective ban on assault-style weapons and has resisted other gun-control efforts.

A raucous town hall Coffman held in February was a big indicator, though, that at least some of his constituents want the congressman to do more to rein in gun violence, with many jeering at him to act.

Cristen Mazzella, a doctor and unaffiliated voter from Centennial, said after a�� Crow event this month that she has never supported Coffman for several reasons, although one is currently at the forefront.

“The gun issue at the moment,” she said of her problems with him. “Otherwise, I’ve always been on the fence.”

But for some GOP voters, the idea of limiting gun rights is a nonstarter.

That could mean winning over single-issue voters will be an impossible task even as Colorado Democrats have made it clear that gun control is something they are going to tackle head on this year.

“It����ap almost like malpractice if you don’t make this a significant part of your campaign,” said Ken Toltz, a Democrat who in 2000�� against former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Toltz announced his campaign four months before the Columbine shooting, when the school was in the district, and gun violence became a centerpiece in the race. In the end, voters chose Tancredo, who somewhat softened his resistance to gun control.

“It����ap gutsy,” Toltz said of Crow’s embrace of gun control as a central campaign issue. “With the atmosphere in Washington, and somewhat in the Colorado legislature as well, there is a feeling that you have to be out there with your views. This is not a time to sit quietly.”

But where Toltz sees courage, Tancredo — who has been critical of Coffman for not being conservative enough — sees danger for Democrats.

“I still don’t believe that it����ap a winning issue,” he said. “Things may have changed so much that I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

The Democratic candidate to face Coffman in November will be decided in the June 26 primary election.

“I don’t know that a person can tape a person without the person’s consent and then release it to the press,” the California Democrat told reporters at her weekly news conference. “In terms of candidates and campaigns I don’t see anything inappropriate in what Mr. Hoyer was engaged in – a conversation about the realities of life in the race as to who can make the general election.”

Thursday’s controversy began when The Intercept between Hoyer and Levi Tillemann, a green energy entrepreneur running for the Democratic nomination in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. The Democratic-trending district, one of 23 that elected a Republican to the House while backing Hillary Clinton for president, is one of the party’s top targets in November’s midterm elections.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has thrown its weight in the race behind Jason Crow, an attorney and veteran running a more center-left campaign than Tillemann, who supports universal Medicare and other planks of Sen. Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., campaign platform. In the December conversation, Hoyer told Tillemann that “a decision was made early on by the Colorado delegation” to back Crow, and that it would continue to do so.

“Staying out of primaries sounds small-D democratic, very intellectual, and very interesting,” said Hoyer, according to the tape. “But it was clear that it was our policy and our hope that, early on, try to come to an agreement on a candidate that we thought could win the general, and to give that candidate all the help we could give them.”

This isn’t the first time that Tillemann’s reached out to reporters with details of the Hoyer meeting. In January, Colorado Politics obtained “detailed notes” from the meeting’s aftermath, and reported that Washington Democrats had urged Tillemann to leave the race and leave a runway open for Crow.

“If you stay in the race – and, frankly I would hope you would not – but if you stay in the race, it is not useful to the objective to tear down Crow,” Hoyer told Tillemann, according to both the notes released in January and the audio released this week.

That story raised eyebrows among Democratic activists; one month later, the DCCC waded into a larger national controversy by releasing opposition research on Laura Moser, a candidate in Texas’ 7th congressional district, and warned that she had made gaffes that would make her unelectable if she won the party’s nomination.

The Moser controversy, which did not stop Moser from securing a spot in the May 22 runoff, kicked off a wave of negative stories, with Democrats who felt pushed aside by the DCCC dishing to reporters and sharing details of meetings. Greg Edwards, a candidate in Pennsylvania’s 7th district, told the Post last month about the DCCC’s local operative urging him to quit his race and run for state Senate. Kara Eastman, a candidate in May 15’s primary for Omaha’s 2nd congressional district, also cried foul when the DCCC backed former congressman Brad Ashford’s comeback bid over her insurgent campaign.

All of that has amped up liberal criticism of the DCCC, which has long intervened in party primaries – but never in a year with so many challengers. After the Intercept’s story ran, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee emailed its donors to raise money for Tillemann.

“Please donate $3 to 3 progressives the DCCC is trying to defeat in upcoming primaries by putting their finger on the scale for corporate Democrats,” the email read.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the DCCC’s counterpoint, has gleefully sent each example of activist/DCCC strife to reporters. The DCCC’s greatest test of the cycle is just weeks away, in a series of California primaries where the state’s top-two runoff system could lock Democrats out of the general election, if they split the vote between too many candidates.

“The level of distrust between the progressive community and House Democratic leadership is at an all-time high,” NRCC spokesman Jesse Hunt wrote in a Thursday email that shared the Tillemann story. “Get ready for the DCCC to become even more toxic in Democratic primaries.”

Pelosi, who has raised millions in this cycle for both individual candidates and the DCCC, said that the candidates who complained about party intervention needed to focus on the prize – control of the House.

“What’s important in all of this is that one in five children in America lives in poverty goes to sleep hungry,” said Pelosi. “That’s what makes this election so urgent, for our children. So if the reality is that some candidates can get into the general [more] than others, then that’s a clear-eyes conversation.”