Updated at 11:15 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30
Incumbent U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper has won his reelection campaign against state Sen. Julie Gonzales.
As of 10:30 p.m., Hickenlooper had 57% of the vote while Gonzales had 43%.
The Associated Press called the race soon after 8:30 p.m.
“A couple of those polls made it look a little bit challenging there for a while,” Hickenlooper said of the race. “But I never lost, never lost faith in all of you.”
Hickenlooper also proclaimed his win as a harbinger of a Democratic sweep of the general election in November.
“We’re gonna take back the U.S. Senate, we will take back the house and then we’re going to stop President Trump in his tracks,” he said to loud applause.
Gonzales gave a concession speech before her supporters. “My heart is full, knowing that we’ve put the Democratic establishment on notice: keep taking folks like us for granted at your own peril,” she said. “John Hickenlooper may have won tonight’s primary. But our movement has already won, because Colorado, we are making it clear that the days of do-nothing Democrats are over in this state.”
Hickenlooper will represent the Democratic Party in the November election. The Republican candidate is Woodland Park’s Mark Baisley, a state senator who dropped out of a crowded Republican primary for the gubernatorial nomination to run for Congress.
Democrats have held both the state’s U.S. Senate seats since 2020.
At Gonzales’ election night party, about 150 people packed into Town Hall Collaborative on Denver’s Santa Fe corridor.
After the first batch of results dropped, showing Gonzales far behind Hickenlooper, Joanne Hirsch of Berthoud said she’d be happy to see a Democrat retain the seat but worried younger voters wouldn’t feel represented and encouraged to civically engage.
“I want to see young people get involved and feel that their voice matters, and I think they need to hear that from younger people,” Hirsch said. “We've had our time.”
A total of 699,840 votes had been counted as of 11:15 p.m. In Hickenlooper’s last primary election in 2020, the race attracted about 999,000 votes, though turnout that year was unusually high.
Hickenlooper hopes to defend his seat
Hickenlooper has spent decades climbing Colorado politics — between 2003 to 2019, he served two terms as Denver’s mayor and then two terms as governor. In 2020, he abandoned a presidential bid to successfully run for the U.S. Senate, unseating a Republican incumbent.
Hickenlooper entered the primary with strong name recognition and a formidable war chest. He’s centered his campaign around bipartisan collaboration, unity among elected Democrats and issues he says are top of mind for Americans, like affordability.
His campaign has been relatively low-key. He has led in early polling and in campaign contributions, with TV ads touting his record. But he hasn’t debated Gonzales, who’s running as a progressive challenger. In an interview after the primary election was called, Hickenlooper said that a demanding travel schedule made a debate challenging to schedule.
“She knows where I stand, I know where she stands,” he said. “The public is pretty clear on what the similarities and differences are … taking the time away to do another debate didn’t seem useful.”
Instead, much of Hickenlooper’s messaging has focused on President Donald Trump.
As a senator, Hickenlooper co-sponsored legislation to increase investment in small businesses, reduce Western wildfire risk and shore up water supplies in the Colorado River basin. He’s also sharply criticized the Trump administration for the Iran war, cutting federal funds to Colorado and for its aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.
“Republicans need to join Democrats in reining in ICE’s lawlessness,” he said in a statement after one federal court decision criticizing ICE. “Then we can finally begin to fix our broken immigration system.”
He declined an in-depth interview about his candicacy with Colorado Matters, though he did answer questions for CPR News’ voter guide.
If he wins his general election campaign, Hickenlooper has said it would be his final stint as a senator. Hickenlooper previously was a geologist and founder of Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing Company, which he describes as the state’s first brewpub.
A challenger from the left
Gonzales, of Denver, has a long resume working in statehouse politics and community organizing. She said she was taking on billionaire-backed “do-nothing Democrats” who have been leading her party for decades.
In the build-up to the primary, Gonzales criticized Hickenlooper for voting to confirm several of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees. She positioned Hickenlooper as part of the establishment and herself as someone who could disrupt the status quo and enact change for both her party and the nation.
“First and foremost, I would've voted for zero of the Trump cabinet nominees, particularly in the second Trump administration. I think that as the saying goes right, ‘Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,’” she told Colorado Matters in May.
She held progressive positions endorsing Medicare for All, universal care for children and the elderly, and housing-first policies to address homelessness, as well as reforms to immigration and stronger regulations on digital surveillance. While she wasn’t formally endorsed by the Denver Democratic Socialists of America, the leftist organization encouraged a yes vote for her.
Gonzales faced an uphill financial battle for the campaign. She did not take corporate PAC money, instead opting for a grassroots campaign. She raised $869,000 — a fraction of Hickenlooper’s $9.8 million.
But Gonzales’ campaign has been aggressive in other ways. She has done several interviews with media outlets, organized numerous campaign events and even appeared on Twitch political commentator Hasan Piker’s stream. She criticized Hickenlooper’s campaign for dodging invites to a public debate.
Gonzales was policy director for the Meyer Law Office before winning election as a state senator for Senate District 34 in northwest Denver. She has held that seat for eight years and is soon to reach her term limit.
