U.S. Senate See Full Big Line

(D) J. Hickenlooper*

(R) Somebody

80%

20%

(D) Joe Neguse

(D) Phil Weiser

(D) Jena Griswold

60%

60%

40%↓

Att. General See Full Big Line

(D) M. Dougherty

(D) Alexis King

(D) Brian Mason

40%

40%

30%

Sec. of State See Full Big Line

(D) George Stern

(D) A. Gonzalez

(R) Sheri Davis

40%

40%

30%

State Treasurer See Full Big Line

(D) Brianna Titone

(R) Kevin Grantham

(D) Jerry DiTullio

60%

30%

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) Somebody

90%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Somebody

90%

2%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Hurd*

(D) Somebody

80%

40%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert*

(D) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank*

(D) Somebody

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen*

(R) Somebody

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(R) Gabe Evans*

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(D) Joe Salazar

50%

40%

40%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
December 28, 2010 09:05 PM UTC

Top Stories of 2010 #9: Ritter Bows Out

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 5th of this year, a story with enormous implications for Colorado politics broke–in Washington, D.C., on the national Political Wire blog. Apparently, word of Gov. Bill Ritter’s decision to not seek re-election leaked out first when D.C.-based fundraising staff were instructed to stop working. The next day, Ritter made it official to local press.

The unexpected withdrawal of Ritter, whose campaign was posting excellent fundraising numbers and seemed to be on track, from the gubernatorial race was initially cheered by Republicans–who pushed the line that mounting problems for Ritter on both sides of the aisle had forced him to conclude re-election was unwinnable. Their cheers quickly morphed into dread, however, as popular Denver mayor John Hickenlooper stepped up a few days later to take Ritter’s place on the ballot. As we said at the time, Hickenlooper was just one of several very strong Democratic contenders who were ready to run for this office; to whatever extent Republicans may have been correct about Ritter’s weaknesses, the Democrats’ deep bench made them totally irrelevant.

Hickenlooper was strong in all of the ways that were needed this year, from good relations with many traditionally GOP-leaning interests (guaranteeing half-hearted opposition from them at best) to popularity with base Democrats that survived a few early triangulation wobbles on the campaign trail. There’s a strong argument that from the moment Hickenlooper replaced Ritter, this race was unwinnable for the GOP.

A question that lingers today, after everything that happened between Ritter’s withdrawal and Hickenlooper’s anticlimactic defeat of two conservative challengers–if Ritter had known that Scott McInnis would implode in a career-ending plagiarism scandal, and that Maes would prove to be a laughable non-threat, leaving conservative hope of winning the gubernatorial race in the hands of walking embarrassment Tom Tancredo…would he still have pulled out of the race?

What we know of the reasons for Ritter’s withdrawal, which range from the considerable stress of high office on himself and his family to the financial pressures of college-age children, suggest that the answer may well have been “yes.” But there’s no way that anyone could have known what was going to happen to McInnis, and without that, the gubernatorial cakewalk Democrats ultimately enjoyed in Colorado could not have been predicted.

Except, perhaps, by Scott McInnis.

Comments

7 thoughts on “Top Stories of 2010 #9: Ritter Bows Out

  1. if Ritter kept the money he was raking in from those “excellent fundraising numbers,” returned it to donors, or…uh…something else?

    If he kept it, he could use it for a future race, right?

  2. Don’t forget that Ritter’s announcement triggered a strange response from the Romanoff Senate campaign.  Bennet supporters, like myself, were called on Sunday morning asking if we’d like to attend a Romanoff press conference on Monday for “a big announcement”.  By Sunday afternoon we were called again to say that it wasn’t going to be a big announcement after all, but we could come by anyway.  On Monday, Romanoff held a press conference to say he was still in the Senate race.  

    Clearly, at one point during that weekend he had decided to run for Governor, but apparently hadn’t determined Hickenlooper’s intentions.  Just another example of how poorly Romanoff ran his campaign.  (Hiring Pat Caddell was my favorite example of campaign idiocy.)  

  3. Not that it would have affected Ritter’s decision.

    But, I happened to be standing next to a Romanoff family friend when he called with the news of his Senate run.  The first question I had for her was, “Why didn’t he run for Governor?”

    That would have been quite a different race — Penry vs. Romanoff — hmmm.

  4. I just thought DeGette would be running.  Remember?  I told LB to watch for a fun primary.  So there was a lot of wrong, but the big right.  No recognition for droll. at. all.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

193 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!