State Senator Evie Hudak has won her reelection bid against Republican opponent Lang Sias, according to the most recent tabulations reported by the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder.
The current tally, posted Thursday, includes votes cast by overseas and military voters as well as those who had to “cure” their ballot because of questionable or missing signatures. Despite conservative assertions that military voters would favor Sias, a combat veteran of both Gulf Wars, the late-game vote actually widened Hudak’s edge. With these votes counted, Hudak leads the Republican by 411 votes, just a hair over the .5% margin necessary to trigger a mandatory recount.
The clerk’s office reports that there are still between 7,300 and 7,600 provisional ballots which remain to be counted before the election results are certified on November 20th, but it’s unlikely the SD-19 share of those votes will sway the race one way or the other. Although Hudak’s leading by only a razor-thin margin, Jeffco’s history lends no reason to believe that the provisional numbers will disproportionately favor Sias. Even if they did, Hudak’s advantage is just large enough to hedge against any unlikely gains for the Republican.
While there will not be a mandatory, county-funded recount, both Sias and the Republican party have the legal right to request one at their own expense. Hudak reports on her Facebook page that Sias has conceded, however, and she’s already joined her caucus in organizing for next year’s legislative session.
With Hudak’s victory, the Democrats have swept every single competitive legislative race in the county. That does not bode well for Jefferson County Republicans – by all accounts, with a few notable exceptions, the party ran its most promising candidates this year. That no Republican pulled out a single competitive state-level victory here evidences that the same national demographic shifts which betokened Barack Obama’s re-election are at play in the county. Republicans have been losing their grasp on Jeffco for years, of course, but 2012 signals that there’s little they can do to stop the bleeding.
Cross posted from Jeffco Pols
No, it’s more than double the margin necessary for an automatic recount. The trigger is when the margin is smaller than 0.5% of the highest vote total for a candidate in a race, not a 0.5% margin between the top two candidates.
In Hudak’s case, she would have had to have led by less than 172 votes to send it to recount when the vote was where it stood at the end of last week. Since provisional ballots have been added, her lead has widened, and at end of business Wednesday she’s 584 votes ahead.
Declarations and predictions aside, it wasn’t until today that the election was certified. A happy victory for the Hudak team. I’m sure it irks the faceless Coloradopols after all the nice things they said about her during the election. But now she has a safe seat for four whole years. I hope she irks you even more.
and the Jeffco Democratic volunteers.
Theirs was an awesome effort.
Here’s hoping Kennedy continues his political career in an elected position. He has the chops to be an excellent legislator.
We saw him at Denny’s the other night, right in Hudak’s district. Really his problem with Hudak is that she doesn’t look like Morgan Carroll did a few years ago. Plus, when you’re an anonymous coward who needs to ostensibly beat up on Democrats, the only thing really acceptable in this case is to make it about how women look. This is boys territory, afterall. Well, boys and the girls who are incapable of critical thought who love them.
I’ve been here a little while and never remember reading any criticism of Ms. Hudak related to her appearance. I don’t know anything about her but what I read in that Denver newspaper and so have very little to say or think of her. Any references I have read here about her election were really about both candidates being weak and most that posted thought Sias was the weaker. So, I have to think that perhaps you and Ms. Wallace have had too much to drink or smoke.
I hope whoever “sufimarie” was stalking at the local Denny’s owns a Taser.
to admit I may have missed something. If you can point to unfair negative criticism of Ms. Hudak, please…
. . . as well as this rich comment from the troll in question.
Just reading. Coloradopols and Jeffcopols have frequently made disdainful comments about Senator Hudak. They’ve attacked her personality, saying she might win “in spite of” her personality. Right now if you go to the Jeffco line, you can see where they say “love her or hate her…” Why say that? Of course the Republicans hate her, but that would apply to every Dem candidate. I think the editors of this blog clearly have something against her. I won’t assume it’s based on her looks or age, but it may be because she was a teacher for a very long time and some people have issues with their teachers. As for your comment that she is a weak candidate. I will take umbrage at that. Evie has run for elected office SIX times and she won FOUR. She has a strong and respected presence in her community and she knows both how to campaign and how to govern, a rare combination. She outraised and outworked just about every Senator this round. That is not my definition of weak. And, I am no troll, thank you, I am a friend and a constituent and I had to wait till the election was over to speak up, but now I’m speaking.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know what the hell their problem is either. I search for “Hudak” in the search box to the right and I see a ton of posts going after Lang Sias. It’s total bullshit to suggest that Colorado Pols has been unfair to Evie Hudak.
Maybe this is what they’re resorting to since they can’t defend Guerin Green’s latest shenanigans.
Can Dougco be far behind? Hmm. Actually, yes.
Good work, Jeffco. You’re a beacon.
1) Chevy and Buick are both made by GM but they are not the same. I have not visited Jeffcopols for some time because there were were few posts and I don’t live anywhere close.
2) Twas not I that said Hudak was a “weak” candidate and that may not even be the word that has been frequently used, just my memory of what was conveyed.
3) Weak candidates can win when a) their opponents is weaker, b) they are an incumbent and get that 3-4% of the vote.
4) try to determine where your anger and bitterness should really be directed so you don’t contribute to harming Ms. Hudak
Congratulations to Ms Hudak and those who have some passion for her campaign. May she perform admirably in the leg this upcoming session
Frankly, that is how long it took Jeffco to get like it is. It all started in 1992 when I and several of my more moderate Republican collegues had had enough. In the primary, the nuts who had been lurking around the edges of Jeffco politics for as long as I can remember, took on Bonnie Allison and Marleen Fish and several other moderate Republicans around the state in the primary and beat them. We were mad and wanted to punish them for their idiocy. Here’s what happened.
I happened to know Mike Feeley who was the place holder for the Dems for Bonnie Allison’s seat in central Jeffco. We met with him and helped him. We told him how to do it and helped him be tough. He was and he won. We also helped some other Democrats beat incumbent Republican nuts in the general like Peggy Lamm and Jim Pierson.
As Republicans (most of us had in the very recent past been party officials) we thought we would do this for one year teach the nuts a lesson and then go back to the way we were. The reality was that before 1992, the only elected Democrat in Jefferson County was, you guessed it, Joan FitzGerald.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. The nuts kept doing what they were doing and nominating and some cases electing nuts who kept making these idiotic unpopular statements. They kept winning the primaries (aided by term limits which got rid of many of the old-time, long-serving and unbeatable Republican moderates in Jeffco.
And we kept getting madder and madder to the point where Pete Blake began calling us the militant moderates, which we were and still are. Next time around, Ed Perlmutter got elected. And it kept going like that. The Dems even won two commissioner seats, but they had the tailwind of their unfair and overblown complaints about the Taj Mahal.
This pissed us moderate Republicans off. So we spent several years trying to change the Republican Party, mostly through abortion issues. I went on the national board of Republicans for Choice. We started up our chapter and were very active. But, soon, many of us realized that this was to no avail, and we quit working with the Republicans and reverted to helping Feeley and Perlmutter and the other moderate Democrats in Jeffco. And this time, we did it openly.
Democrats kept winning because the Republicans were just too extreme and we helped the Democrats convince unaffiliates and Republicans that they were too extreme. Soon, they controlled the legislative delegation, rather handily.
However, they kept having trouble at the county level due to the historic
Republican tilt of Jefferson County. With a relatively few exceptions, Republicans continued to control the entire courthouse.
Two years ago the “former REpublican Jefferson County Chairman” (that’s me and they can never take that title away from me) even made a robo-call on behalf of Jeanne Nicholson, a Democrat from Gilpin County running in the mountains of Jeffco. She won the seat, certainly not just because I made the call. But she won.
But, this year, it has changed. Did anyone hear about our Commmissioner race this year? The answer is no. No mail, no TV, no radio, nothing dropped at houses. No overriding issue for the Democratic candidate to run on. In effect, a base election year. And yet, the Deomcrat prevailed!!!!!! Unbelievable.
It took 20 years. Who knew it would take this long. But it did. But now the transition is complete. Jeffco is no longer a Republican County. It’s on it’s way to being reliably Democratic (assuming that the Democrats don’t go back to their old ways of nominating extreme candidates again).
I got a call last week from Mike Feeley out of the blue. We don’t see each other much any more because I am essentially out of politics. When he called he told me that the Democrat was 215 votes ahead. I told him that I had thought about him on the day after the election when the Democrat was behind by 105 votes with the provisionals to be counted and wondered if this would be the year when 20 years later, the task was complete. We reminisced and congratulated each other.
I am proud to have played a small role in this matter along with my other moderate friends, many of whom did not live to see this day. They would be proud too. Those of you who are still around, well, you know who you are. We done good.
RIP Jeffco Republican Party, go to hell those who run the “Republican” Party in Jeffco today.
For those of us who’ve been paying attention only recently to insider politics. You did done good.
And, P.S., those commissioner (and school board) elections need more attention than we usually give them. That’s where idiots get easily elected, and from those perches they can make life really miserable for people’s daily lives.
I met Mike Feeley about 5 years ago for the first time. I had always been impressed with his work in the leg and his personal history. Fine dude. Wish he was still involved.
Term limits absolutely suck. One of those 5th grade kind of solutions that voters frequently are dumb enought to buy
…last year got A LOT of attention. And our people prevailed in those. We need to pay attention to the one next year to take out Laura Boggs. Also, RTD board is another one we have to pay attention to.