{"id":106430,"date":"2016-03-02T04:52:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T11:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sanders-defeats-clinton-in-colorados-democratic-caucuses\/"},"modified":"2016-03-02T04:52:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T11:52:21","slug":"sanders-defeats-clinton-in-colorados-democratic-caucuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sanders-defeats-clinton-in-colorados-democratic-caucuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanders defeats Clinton in Colorado\u2019s Democratic caucuses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Voters
Voters crowd in to check with precinct captains at a Democratic caucus in Denver late Tuesday, March 1. Colorado was one of 12 states casting votes for party nominees on Super Tuesday, which offers candidates the chance to garner the biggest single-day delegate haul of the nomination contests.<\/span>Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sanders generated an impressive turnout among young adults at the precinct caucuses, especially in Denver and Boulder, where lines of voters surrounded some precincts more than an hour after caucusing began. Most of Colorado\u2019s Democratic Party establishment endorsed Clinton, and most expect her to eventually win the nomination.<\/p>\n

Molly Ison, 38 weeks pregnant, sat in a camping chair in an around-the-block line waiting to caucus for Sanders at a central Denver middle school. The 33-year-old software developer said she liked Sanders\u2019 longstanding focus on economic equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been unswayed about this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cole Kauffman, a 32-year-old nurse, also caucused for Sanders but was under no illusions about his chances of winning the nomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m supporting Bernie in the hopes that it pulls Hillary to the left,\u201d Kauffman said.<\/p>\n

Standing next to him, his wife, Elena Harman, scowled. She was one of few in the liberal neighborhood wearing a Clinton sticker on her jacket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t dislike Bernie, but I feel domestic policy is a narrow part of what the president does, and I feel he\u2019s not prepared to be commander in chief,\u201d said Harman, 28, who runs a firm that advises nonprofits. \u201cThe president has a lot more direct control of foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton organized early in Colorado with 10 field offices. Sanders\u2019 volunteers intensified their campaign in recent weeks, and Sanders held a Sunday rally in the university town of Fort Collins.<\/p>\n

Colorado Republicans abandoned a presidential straw poll this year because the national GOP required a binding delegate vote. State party leaders would have no voice at the national convention if the winner here dropped out before then.<\/p>\n

Instead, GOP caucus-goers declared their preferences for state and local races, including several candidates hoping to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in November.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans were frustrated that the party chose to wait on the presidential race.<\/p>\n

Doug Schuck of Cherry Hills Village said the presidential contest got him interested in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo not be able to cast a vote is disappointing. It means they\u2019re only going to hear from a few people, the insiders they want to hear from,\u201d said Schuck, 69, an independent automobile restorer and Donald Trump supporter.<\/p>\n

Even Republicans who didn\u2019t mind the party\u2019s presidential decision said the top contest drew them to the caucus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat brought me out tonight was to try to get some sense of where the Republican party is going as a whole,\u201d said 56-year-old June Fuller of Englewood, who opposes Trump and supports Ohio Gov. John Kasich. \u201cWe just have to band together and see if we can stop this terrible tsunami that\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s caucuses are the first step toward sending party members to the national conventions this summer. After Tuesday, each party holds successive assemblies in each county, then each congressional district, and then party conventions in April. Both parties hold primaries in June.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s caucuses also are not a reliable predictor of the state\u2019s eventual preferences: In 2012, Rick Santorum upset Mitt Romney in the straw poll, stunning political analysts who expected Romney to repeat his 2008 victory here. Romney went on to get the most Colorado delegates at a GOP state assembly.<\/p>\n

Twelve states cast votes for party nominees Tuesday, the biggest single-day delegate haul of the nomination contests. Republicans voted in 11 states, with 595 delegates at stake. Democrats voted in 11 states and American Samoa, with 865 delegates up for grabs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

crowd in to check with precinct captains at a Democratic caucus in Denver late Tuesday, March 1. Colorado was one of 12 states casting votes for party nominees on Super Tuesday, which offers candidates the chance to garner the biggest single-day delegate haul of the nomination contests.Associated Press Sanders generated an impressive turnout among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[266,13,308,299],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-election","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-local-elections","tag-national-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106430"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}