Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday to face Republican Senator Cory Gardner in November, overcoming a series of stumbles and rejecting a challenge from his left.
Hickenlooper’s defeat of former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff breaks the wave of the Democratic left that started earlier this month in a race in New York City, where a black high school teacher declared the victory over Representative Elliot Engel before the results of the vote by mail were published. Romanoff is a former moderate who became a populist, takes on the moderate favorite of the Democratic establishment and promises a green New Deal and single-payer healthcare.
But he couldn’t beat Hickenlooper’s immense financial advantage: The former governor outpointed Romanoff by about 7-to-1, and his deep-name identification and goodwill reserve among voters coming from two terms at the governor’s mansion.
That’s why Senate Democrats recruited Hickenlooper to take on Gardner, widely seen as the most vulnerable Republican in the Senate because Colorado has shifted far to the left. For a brief moment during primary, it seemed like that change, combined with Hickenlooper’s surprising missteps, could give Romanoff a chance.
Hickenlooper challenged a subpoena from the state’s independent ethics commission on Republican charges that he violated the ethics law by taking private flights and car trips as governor. A self-made billionaire, Hickenlooper had said he would happily testify in person in the case, but declined to appear virtually until a judge rejected his attempt to void the citation and the commission found him in contempt.
The commission discovered that Hickenlooper had violated the law on a flight and a limousine trip at Biltsberger’s secret meetings in Rome. Then, amid protests of police violence against blacks, Hickenlooper confuses the meaning of the slogan “Black Lives Matter.” The following week, an African-American follower of Romanoff tweeted a 6-year-old video from Hickenlooper that jokingly compares politicians to slaves who were flogged to row “an old slave ship.”
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The combination of mistakes and setbacks was enough to entice Republicans to launch millions of dollars in ads that attacked Hickenlooper. Democrats responded with defensive announcements, and Romanoff then stepped in and added his own attack announcement against the former governor.
The Colorado Democratic establishment, from Governor Jared Polis to Senator Michael Bennet, condemned Romanoff for the move. Then, days later, a big-money group that won’t reveal to its donors launched a $ 1 million ad campaign criticizing Romanoff for spearheading a bill against illegal immigrants in 2006. Romanoff has since apologized.
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Republicans hope Hickenlooper has been beaten enough to give Gardner a chance in the November election. Although Colorado has turned strongly against Trump, Gardner hopes to portray himself as a hard-working senator fighting for his home state, in contrast to Hickenlooper, whom the Republican Party sees as unfortunate and ego-driven.
Democrats, however, argue that Hickenlooper who survives the primaries shows that voters do not see him as a standard politician and trust him deeply. Meanwhile, they plan to link Gardner with Trump, who is unpopular in the state. No Republican has won a state election in Colorado since 2014, when Gardner won by less than 2 percentage points in a strong year for Republicans. Hickenlooper was reelected as Governor that year by a wider margin.
