DENVER – Democrats say they will hold onto a razor-thin majority in the Colorado House.
But the loss of several seats and the close nature of the races raise questions as to whether Coloradans revolted against the majority’s agenda.
A similar scenario is playing out in the Senate, where a dead heat could have the majority going either way. Democrats currently hold a one-seat majority there.
Power in the Senate will come down to the race between Democratic Judy Solano and Republican Beth Martinez Humenik, who led by 1,005 votes in Senate District 24, as of Thursday afternoon. If Solano loses, Republicans would hold the Senate for the first time since 2005.
But the House races served as the true surprise of the election. Democrats currently control the chamber 37-28, meaning Republicans needed five seats to take the majority.
Democrats appeared confident during the election season that they would maintain a comfortable hold, if not gain seats.
But on Thursday, six seats were still very close.
Some of those seats were in Democratic safe districts that were largely overlooked by the House majority, including Rep. Joe Salazar’s seat in Adams County, Rep. Su Ryden’s seat in Arapahoe County, and Rep. Jenise May’s seat in Adams County.
Salazar and May were losing by five and 347 votes, respectively. Ryden was winning by only 589 ballots, as of Thursday afternoon.
There are still thousands of ballots left to be counted, especially in Adams County, so the races could flip.
House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, acknowledged that the races in those safer districts came as a surprise, highlighting Adams County.
“No one saw those as competitive races. We didn’t see Republican spending or Democratic spending,” said Ferrandino, who is term-limited and leaving the Legislature in January.
“You always worry when you’re running an election, where are the surprises? Where are the seats you’re not thinking about? Adams County was more of a surprise,” Ferrandino said.
But the speaker rejected the notion that any Republican wave fell over Colorado, despite incumbent Democratic Mark Udall losing the race for U.S. Senate and Democrats losing every statewide office in Colorado except the governor’s.
Ferrandino pointed out that Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, won re-election. But the race was closer than Hickenlooper would have liked, winning by 3 points, as of Thursday afternoon.
House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, chuckled when he heard Ferrandino downplayed a Republican wave.
“The Democrats thought that they might pick up seats, and the fact that 400 votes is keeping them in the majority, I think that is a very successful election for us,” DelGrosso said of the close races.
He suggested that Democrats over-reached in 2013 when they passed a package of gun-control bills, as well as a contentious elections reform measure, among other hot-button issues.
“Elections are always a referendum on the past couple of years. If the voters were happy with the legislation passed the last two years, we wouldn’t have seen several incumbents lose seats, and we gained seats,” DelGrosso said.
Ferrandino, however, pointed to House District 59, where Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, is losing to Republican J. Paul Brown in a rematch by only 229 votes, as of Thursday afternoon.
Democrats knew the race would be tough. Outside interests spent big money looking to unseat McLachlan, who supported the gun-control legislation. But Ferrandino pointed out that McLachlan is still holding his own.
“For him to be that close means that while, yes, there were people in his district who voted against him because of where he voted on guns, there are people who voted for him because of where he was on guns,” Ferrandino said. “But that wasn’t the deciding factor of what’s going to happen in this race.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
