2018 race takes shape
Who’s-who list of potential candidates includes Ken Salazar and Walker Stapleton.
Many of the biggest names in Colorado politics already are jockeying for a place in the 2018 governor’s race — one irrevocably altered by Donald Trump’s victory and other results from November.
The who’s-who list of prospective candidates includes former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and current U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter on the Democratic side and State Treasurer Walker Stapleton and District Attorney George Brauchler on the Republican side.
All of them — and a dozen others — are exploring bids to replace Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is term-limited after eight years in office.
Republicans are looking to buck history and persuade Colorado voters to elect a GOP candidate after more than a half century of Democratic dominance. Only two Republicans, John Arthur Love and Bill Owens, have won in the past six decades.
Democrats — still smarting from a loss to Trump on the national level — want to rebound and make Colorado part of a national effort to win the majority of 38 governorships on the ballot in 2017 and 2018.
“It’s early enough that people are being coy (about running),” said Kyle Saunders, a political scientist at Colorado State University. But he said the opportunity that comes with an open seat probably will draw a long list of contenders, while giving Republicans and Democrats a chance to learn more about who in the state supports their agenda.
“An open seat allows parties to take stock of their electoral coalitions,” he said.
There’s a bigger prize this time around, too.
The party that wins the 2018 gubernatorial race will have an outsize influence on the next round of redistricting, the once-a-decade process in which states draw the boundaries of statehouse and congressional seats.
Being in control during redistricting can greatly improve a party’s political fortunes for several election cycles — as the ruling party can protect its incumbents with friendly districts while putting their opponents in competitive seats.
Adding to the drama are internal feuds in both major parties — rifts exacerbated by the 2016 presidential contest. At this stage, it’s unlikely there’s a candidate in either party who can clear the field.
Among Democrats, the primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders exposed a divide between party leaders and its more progressive wing — a clash amplified by the fact that Colorado’s top elected Democrats backed Clinton in spite of Sanders’ dominance at the state’s presidential caucus.
Republicans have a similar issue. Conservatives elevated hardliner Darryl Glenn to victory during a crowded GOP race for U.S. Senate this year — a result that made it difficult for the party to compete in a general election, where Colorado voters are split evenly among Democratic, Republican and independent voters.
At the same time, a group of Colorado Republicans led the failed effort to topple Trump at the Republican National Convention. How party members view the start to his presidency could have an impact on which candidates they support. Stapleton, for example, backed distant relative Jeb Bush in the GOP primary, although he later voted for Trump.
Still, it’s possible — though not certain — that a change in election rules could affect what kind of candidate emerges from the Democratic and Republican primaries.
In November, Colorado voters approved Proposition 108, which allows independent voters to cast a ballot in party primaries. But the measure allows the parties to exclude these voters, making the dynamic an open question. Proponents of Proposition 108 said the inclusion of independents could lead to more moderate candidates.
“The candidates who are lining up are going to have to think about that and how that factors into their strategy,” said Curtis Hubbard, a political consultant who worked to pass Proposition 108.
One of the biggest financial backers of Proposition 108 — Kent Thiry, chairman and CEO of DaVita, a kidney-dialysis company — is considered a potential candidate.
Among Republicans, the early discussion has included talk of Brauchler, Stapleton and state Sens. Tim Neville and Ray Scott. Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and others from the business world are being mentioned as possible candidates.
Stapleton and Brauchler are the “nominal frontrunners,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chair. But if a split emerges as it did in the U.S. Senate race this year and “we end up with another four- or five-way primary,” he said, “all bets are off.”
The 2010 governor’s race — Colorado’s last open-seat contest — turned into a disaster for Republicans. After winning a close primary, Republican Dan Maes earned just 11 percent of the vote as 36 percent of Coloradans backed Tom Tancredo, an immigration hardliner and former Republican congressman who ran as a third-party candidate.
Hickenlooper took the seat that year with about half the vote.
Whether Democrats can keep the governor’s mansion may hinge on what candidate they put forward in the primary. Right now, the conversation begins with Salazar, a former U.S. senator who became interior secretary under President Barack Obama.
Earlier this year, Clinton tapped Salazar to serve as her transition chief — a post that could have led to a job in her administration had she won. But with Trump headed to the Oval Office, the governor’s mansion is one of the few paths available to the well-connected Democrat.
If he doesn’t — and maybe even if he does — another potential candidate is Perlmutter, who just won his sixth term in the House.
Perlmutter recently made waves when he supported Ohio congressman Tim Ryan in his failed bid to oust Nancy Pelosi as the top Democrat in the House, a move one political consultant said could play well among Democratic activists in Colorado.
“That’s the right thing to do if you want to run in a state where Bernie Sanders won the caucuses and you need to move past the Clinton coalition,” Hubbard said. “Ed has set himself up to do that.”
Other Democratic possibilities include state lawmakers such as Joe Salazar and Mike Johnston, businessman Noel Ginsburg, and Cary Kennedy, who served as state treasurer before Stapleton. The chatter in Democratic circles also includes U.S. Rep. Jared Polis and Donna Lynne, the lieutenant governor.
Most prospective candidates in both parties are keeping a lowprofile, although the new year probably will see several campaign kickoffs — and not just because early exposure will bring more publicity to their governor runs.
The reason has to do with state limits on campaign fundraising.
Unlike federal races, where individual donors were able to max out with $5,400 in combined contributions for the 2016 primary and general elections, the limit for state races was much lower: $1,150 combined for both elections.
That’s a big issue for candidates who want to qualify to run by petition, a complicated and sometimes risky process in which a candidate must gather 1,500 signatures from each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts.
The low ceiling on donations to state races means long-shot candidates need to tap significantly more donors to raise the $200,000 or so necessary to run a statewide petition campaign.
Candidates can also qualify through their parties’ state assemblies, often the best route for those with fewer financial resources.
Political strategists across the ideological spectrum said it’s not too early for candidates to think about tactics.
Alan Salazar, a veteran Democratic political operative, said even though Clinton won Colorado, her loss in the traditional party stronghold of Pueblo County should remind Democrats they must not forsake more rural communities at the expense of chasing votes in Denver and Boulder.
“That’s a real lesson Democrats have to pay attention to,” Salazar said. “We still have to meet people where they are.”
GOP pollster David Flaherty said it’s impossible to think about the 2018 governor’s race without considering how voters — and candidates — will react to the first two years of Trump’s presidency.
“We’re all in Donald Trump’s hands, at least Republicans are,” said Flaherty, who previously worked at the Republican National Committee. “The Trump agenda is going to be hanging over everything.”
Doug Friednash, chief of staff to Hickenlooper, said both parties could learn from the last election. “Trump’s victory was a major political disrupter and may have very well permanently changed the American political landscape,” he said. “Kennedy, Reagan and Trump revolutionized the way political candidates have communicated with voters. The person who becomes our next governor may be the person who does this most effectively.”
For the moment, one national analyst is giving a small edge to Democrats in Colorado — based largely on Clinton winning the state by about 5 percentage points.
“Although presidential performance is not a perfect measurement in governors races, it does play a role when it comes to assigning ratings. This is particularly true of open seats,” wrote Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan prognosticator of election trends and races.