{"id":65998,"date":"2020-03-09T12:46:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T18:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/romanoff-wins-democratic-u-s-senate-caucuses-in-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:32:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:32:56","slug":"romanoff-wins-democratic-u-s-senate-caucuses-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/romanoff-wins-democratic-u-s-senate-caucuses-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanoff wins Democratic U.S. Senate caucuses in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff speaks to Democratic voters at a caucus site in Aurora on Saturday, March 7.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Andrew Romanoff won a decisive victory in a primary preference poll for U.S. Senate conducted Saturday at the Democratic caucuses, defeating former Gov. John Hickenlooper, the national party\u2019s favorite in the race.<\/p>\n

Romanoff scored 55% of the vote and Hickenlooper came in second with 30%, according to a preliminary tally from The Colorado Sun.<\/a>Three other little-known candidates finished well behind the top candidates in the poll, which drew only the party\u2019s most faithful supporters.<\/p>\n

In unofficial results<\/a> in Montezuma County, Romanoff won 60.34% of the vote to Hickenlooper\u2019s 34.48%. La Plata voted in favor of Hickenlooper, 55.5% to 40.66%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appetite on the part of the national establishment was to crush our little grassroots army here, and that didn\u2019t turn out too well for them,\u201d Romanoff said in an interview Sunday. \u201cVoters want somebody who is going to go and fight for them and not just do the bidding of some party boss or the bidding of a power broker in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results from the Saturday caucuses are expected to give Romanoff\u2019s overlooked campaign a jolt of momentum, but the preference poll is not a reliable predictor of which candidate will win the Democratic nomination in the June primary.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the former House speaker\u2019s victory is overshadowed by the irregularities that marred the caucus vote Saturday. The party has not yet reported preliminary or official statewide results.<\/p>\n

The vote totals from the 3,133 precinct caucuses posted by the state party were incomplete and incorrect through Sunday. Democratic officials were forced to retract initial counts reported by numerous counties because of calculation errors. It also remains far from certain how many delegates the candidates won ahead of the county assemblies, which will take place in coming weeks.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for party Chairwoman Morgan Carroll acknowledged a plethora of problems but defended the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to remember that the caucuses are done by volunteers \u2026 and they are doing the best they can and working really hard,\u201d said spokesman David Pourshoushtari. \u201cIt can be an imperfect process, as we\u2019ve seen, but I think democracy can be messy and what\u2019s important is that they get in all the numbers \u2026 rather than be inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic turnout is low \u2013 near 1% statewide<\/div>\n

Turnout fell well below expectations and was lower than the 2018 levels for the Democratic gubernatorial race.<\/p>\n

In Cheyenne County, no one showed up. And three other counties didn\u2019t report any results.<\/p>\n

Once all the votes are counted, it will represent only about 1% of the 1.2 million registered Democrats in the state. State party leaders blamed the lack of interest on the coronavirus outbreak, confusion about the process and abnormally warm weather Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Days before the caucuses, Hickenlooper predicted he would win<\/a>, but he retreated Saturday and forecast a loss before the votes were even counted.<\/p>\n

He said the caucuses draw the more progressive factions of the party, and he is not their candidate. Hickenlooper backs fracking for oil and gas and a public health insurance option, rather than a broader government-run health care through \u201cMedicare for All.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re someone who runs maybe not as far, not as progressive,\u201d it\u2019s harder, he told reporters. \u201cI\u2019m not always embracing the pathway that some people here today do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Former
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper speaks to Democratic voters at a caucus site in Denver on Saturday, March 7.<\/span>John Frank\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But Hickenlooper \u2013 who won the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee soon after he announced his bid in August \u2013 said he\u2019s confident he will fare better in June and be able to beat Republican incumbent Cory Gardner in November. \u201cI\u2019ve run statewide twice in bad years for Democrats and I have a relationship with Democrats across the state,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that relationship should allow me to build momentum and really take Cory Gardner on head to head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romanoff to \u2018supersize\u2019 his campaign<\/div>\n

Romanoff is the candidate more aligned with progressives. He backs the Green New Deal and supports Medicare for All \u2013 two policy proposals that Hickenlooper distanced himself from in the Senate race and during his failed presidential bid.<\/p>\n

But Romanoff\u2019s campaign is a shoestring effort compared to his rival, who is raising millions, getting help from national Democratic heavyweights and hiring a large staff.<\/p>\n

Hours after his victory, Romanoff\u2019s campaign sent a fundraising email to supporters, hoping to capitalize on the victory. \u201cThis is no time to ease up; we need to expand our grassroots campaign,\u201d the candidate wrote. \u201cThat means recruiting more volunteers and raising enough resources to reach the airwaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a position Romanoff knows well. In 2010, he challenged Sen. Michael Bennet, the national Democratic favorite appointed to the seat a year earlier, and won the party caucuses by a similar margin. But he lost the primary in June that year.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Romanoff acknowledged the challenge ahead, but he drew confidence from the caucus vote. He said he is seeing a fundraising bump and plans to \u201csupersize\u201d his campaign in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters took a look at me and made their decision pretty clear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The support at the caucuses should win Romanoff enough delegates to the county assemblies to qualify for the ballot. He needs support from 30% at the subsequent state assembly to secure his slot.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper may reach the mark, too, but it\u2019s not as consequential. His campaign also collected signatures to make the ballot as an insurance policy.<\/p>\n

The results from Saturday\u2019s caucuses will leave three other Democratic U.S. Senate candidates struggling to qualify for the June ballot. Stephany Rose Spaulding, a college professor, and Trish Zornio, a neurologist and researcher, finished with a fraction of the vote and delegate count.<\/p>\n

They will need to find a way to pick up more support before the state assembly if they want to qualify, a difficult task given Saturday\u2019s results after none of them appear close to the 30% threshold.<\/p>\n

A handful of other candidates are seeking to qualify for the ballot with signatures.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Republican Party also hosted caucuses on Saturday, but officials did not conduct a preference poll because Gardner does not face a serious primary challenger. Lx Fangonilo, the party\u2019s executive director, said he won\u2019t have turnout numbers for days, but the GOP expects turnout on par with Democrats.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progressive champion beats Hickenlooper ahead of the June primary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65998","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=65998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90233,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65998\/revisions\/90233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65998"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}