It was a busy political weekend in Colorado, with both the state Democratic and Republican parties holding their conventions — and snubbing incumbents and frontrunner candidates on both sides, most notably Dem Sen. Michael Bennet. However, this is not the last word in the campaign on either side.
Bennet’s primary challenger, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, handily won the convention by a margin of 60%-40%Â — though Bennet was still over the 30% threshold needed to guarantee a place on the primary ballot, without having to petition his way onto it. For Romanoff, the upshot of his win here is that he will be listed in the first position on the primary ballot, with the incumbent Bennet in the second place on the ballot. This outcome had been expected since the party caucuses in March, in which Romanoff’s supporters won more delegate seats.
This largely comes from two factors. First, Romanoff took advantage of a general anti-incumbent frustration with Washington. But second and perhaps more importantly, Bennet is an appointed Senator who never ran for anything before — and therefore lacked the political base of Romanoff, who was far more organized for this early stage of the campaign. However, Bennet still has an edge in the primary for now, with the TPM Poll Average putting him ahead of Romanoff by 43.0%-32.5%.
Romanoff touted the anti-incumbent line against Bennet. “This Senate seat doesn’t belong to him any more than it belongs to me,” said Romanoff, addressing the delegates. “It belongs to the people of Colorado, it belongs to you.”
Interestingly, Bennet told reporters that he will continue to circulate petitions to get on to the ballot, even though he met the minimum threshold at the convention, because he sees it as constructive for his campaign: “It allows us a real opportunity to talk to thousands of people.”
On the Republican side, GOPers picked Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck with 77% of the delegate vote for Senate. Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, the establishment-backed candidate, skipped the convention entirely and will get onto the primary ballot by petitions. The TPM Poll Average gives Norton a lead over Buck of 31%-26%. GOPers also gave the first position on their gubernatorial primary ballot to businessman Dan Maes, beating out frontrunner former Congressman Scott McInnis.
It should be clear that these conventions were not the same sort of binding contests that we saw two weeks ago in Utah, where Republican Sen. Bob Bennett was defeated outright at his state party convention. Rather, these conventions determine the ballot order for the primary, and whether some candidates would have to petition on to the ballot — but they are not determinative who will win the nomination.
For example, in the 2004 open-seat Senate race, both parties’ eventual nominees, Democrat Ken Salazar and Republican Pete Coors, lost at their respective conventions before going on to win the primaries. In short, losing the convention vote in Colorado is a setback, and any campaign would rather win these contests than lose them, but it is not the end of the line.
