{"id":38790,"date":"2022-08-22T17:37:53","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T23:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-sen-kevin-priola-switches-party-registration-to-democrat-citing-conspiracies\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:46:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:46:24","slug":"state-sen-kevin-priola-switches-party-registration-to-democrat-citing-conspiracies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-sen-kevin-priola-switches-party-registration-to-democrat-citing-conspiracies\/","title":{"rendered":"State Sen. Kevin Priola switches party registration to Democrat, citing conspiracies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"State
State Sen. Kevin Priola, center. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

State Sen. Kevin Priola has switched his party registration to Democrat from Republican, the Henderson lawmaker announced Monday, citing ongoing concerns about the GOP\u2019s embrace of 2020 election conspiracies and unwillingness to work on legislation to combat climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot continue to be a part of a political party that is OK with a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election,\u201d Priola wrote in a letter announcing his decision. \u201cThere is too much at stake right now for Republicans to be in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surprise move less than three months from Election Day improves Democrats\u2019 chances of maintaining their power at the Capitol after the November election. Democrats now outnumber Republicans 21-14 in the Senate as a result of the change, making the GOP\u2019s uphill battle to win a majority in the chamber that much steeper.<\/p>\n

Priola is not up for reelection this year \u2013 his term ends in January 2025 \u2013 but Republicans were hoping to pick up a handful of Senate seats in November and end the Democratic control of the Capitol that\u2019s been in place since January 2019.<\/p>\n

Priola\u2019s switch guarantees Democrats 13 Senate seats in January, compared with seven for the GOP. Of the Senate seats up for election in November, three are considered solidly Democratic, five solidly Republican and seven are tossups.<\/p>\n

Priola has often voted with Democrats in recent years, bucking his party on issues like climate, energy and tax reform. His positions sometimes drew intense ire from his Republican colleagues. In the final days of the 2022 lawmaking term, for instance, he began shouting at state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, on the Senate floor as Sonnenberg tried to rally the GOP Senate caucus to battle against a recycling bill Priola was sponsoring.<\/p>\n

Priola isn\u2019t on board with all of the Democratic caucus\u2019 priorities, however. He is fiercely anti-abortion, signing onto a GOP letter in recent weeks criticizing Democratic Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 recent executive order blocking Colorado\u2019s state entities from cooperating with abortion investigations initiated in other states.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn nearly every case, rape excepted, life is naturally created by the conscious choice of two individuals aware of the potential outcome of their decisions,\u201d the letter said. \u201cNowhere in law or morals is it otherwise acceptable to end a life because of the imposition of personal hardship or inconvenience resulting from one\u2019s own deliberate actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter concluded that \u201clife begins at conception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priola wrote in his letter that he realizes the political implications of his decision to switch parties and how it benefits Democrats heading into the November election.<\/p>\n

He said there will \u201ccontinue to be issues that I disagree with the Democratic Party on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur political affiliations have become too tribe and too much of a litmus test,\u201d Priola wrote. \u201cI\u2019ve always been an independent thinker and sometimes buck the conventional wisdom of my party \u2013 and I don\u2019t plan to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat, welcomed the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, Senator Kevin Priola chose his constituents and Colorado\u2019s future over partisan politics,\u201d Fenberg said in a written statement. \u201cIt is unfortunate that the Colorado Republicans have become so extreme that moderate voices aren\u2019t welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Jared Polis said in a tweet that he was \u201cproud\u201d to welcome Priola to the Democratic Party, calling him a \u201cstrong leader on climate issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaders of the Senate Republican caucus didn\u2019t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Kristi Burton Brown, chairwoman of the Colorado GOP, criticized Priola\u2019s move, saying he will regret it in 2023 once Republicans have won a majority in the chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin Priola finally made the move to the party he\u2019s consistently voted with,\u201d she wrote in a statement. \u201cAfter lying to his constituents and routinely voting for tax increases that hurt the everyday working families of his district, he\u2019s now admitted his true affiliation: a pro-tax-increase Democrat. It\u2019s clear that Priola has selfishly chosen to make himself the story at the expense of Coloradans he was elected to fight for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priola was first elected as a state representative in 2008. He was elected to his first term as a state senator in 2016 and won a reelection in 2020 during a difficult year for Republicans in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Priola said he first became a Republican in 1990 during the ascent of Ronald Reagan, enamored by Reagan\u2019s views on trade, taxes and immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t changed much in 30 years,\u201d Priola said in his letter, \u201cbut my party has.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a developing story that will be updated.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018There is too much at stake right now for Republicans to be in charge,\u2019 Henderson lawmaker writes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,233,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38790","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=38790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84129,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38790\/revisions\/84129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38790"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}