Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser won the Democratic nomination for governor of the state Tuesday, beating out U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in a race partly centered around which candidate was better at challenging President Trump.
Weiser became attorney general in 2019, after serving in the Justice Department under the presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Weiser will be favored to win in November in the blue state.
The governor’s race was one of several of Democratic primaries on Tuesday that are helping answer a question the party has increasingly faced nationally: Are voters gravitating toward a younger, more progressive generation of leaders or sticking with established veterans?
That choice is starkly reflected in the fight to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette has been in office for as long as her challenger, a 29-year-old democratic socialist named Melat Kiros, has been alive. In a similar faceoff, Sen. John Hickenlooper successfully fended off a primary challenge from self-fashioned “insurgent progressive” state Sen. Julie Gonzales.
And a similar, if smaller, divide separated the two Democrats competing for the U.S. House in the state’s lone swing district that’s one of the key’s in party control of Congress. The candidate considered more progressive, state Rep. Manny Rutinel beat Shannon Bird, another state representative with a more moderate record in the statehouse.
In the governor’s race, however, the opposite was the case: Weiser and Bennet struggled to meaningfully distinguish their agendas. Instead, the two Democrats accused each other of pulling punches against Trump.
Democratic socialists have another shot in Denver
DeGette comfortably controlled her House seat in Denver for nearly 30 years, then came Kiros.
In a March Democratic assembly, a process to decide which candidates get on the primary ballot, DeGette barely qualified as Kiros, a first-time candidate, blew past her with more than double the votes.
While the assembly process is far from determinative of who will win Tuesday, it was a jolt for the Democratic establishment and DeGette, who’s been a progressive lawmaker herself.
Then, in New York last week, two democratic socialists and a progressive beat out establishment-backed candidates — two of whom were incumbents — in Democratic primaries for U.S. House, energizing a movement that’s just finding some political purchase.
Similar to the New York races, Kiros had the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, while DeGette was backed by Colorado’s established Democratic House delegation.
A victory by Kiros in Colorado, while far from guaranteed, would work toward cementing the nascent but clear uprising of democratic socialist candidates, which has filled some Democratic leaders with anxiety.
DeGette argued that experience in Congress is needed right now to combat Trump, while Kiros, a former attorney, accused DeGette of ineffectiveness. Also running was University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, who may split the anti-DeGette vote.
The ‘insurgent progressive’ versus the political veteran
Gonzales, the state senator, tried and failed Tuesday to kick Hickenlooper, the more centrist former governor of Colorado, out of his U.S. Senate seat.
She leaned into the same arguments that others used in challenging establishment incumbents, including that Hickenlooper was an “incrementalist.”
Gonzales had said she previously joined the Democratic Socialists of America in 2018, but that her membership has lapsed.
A swing district may help decide control of the House
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is relatively new and stretches from the northern suburbs of Denver up through farming country, but it’s drawn national focus as a highly competitive swing district as Democrats seek to retake control of the House.
Initially, party leaders though the more moderate Bird was best equipped to challenge Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. But Rutinel, who had the more progressive record, beat Bird Tuesday night.
The district is also heavily Hispanic and poorer than much of the rest of the state, and that’s where Rutinel, who is Latino, planted a flag, arguing his personal story and more aggressive economic agenda would be more potent against Evans.
Who has hit Trump harder?
Weiser and Bennet slugged that question out in the governor’s race after struggling to show major differences in their political agendas.
Weiser attacked Bennet for voting for Trump nominees and Bennet lambasted Weiser for not joining state lawsuits against the first Trump administration.
“The attorney general says he’s really tough but was completely missing in action in Donald Trump’s first term,” Bennet said in a recent debate.
Weiser accused Bennet of a weak response to the president. But he also said Bennet should remain in the Senate instead of running for governor.
“You’ve made some mistakes; you didn’t stand up the way you should. I know you can shape up, use your seniority,” Weiser told Bennet during a debate. “With all that experience, to throw it away, would be such a waste for Colorado.”
Weiser will be seen as the favorite to defeat the winner of the GOP primary and take over from term-limited Gov. Jared Polis.
The three main candidates seeking the Republican nomination included state Rep. Scott Bottoms, a further right state lawmaker. State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer was considered the more conventional Republican, while Victor Marx was something of a wild card candidate with an eclectic past.
