By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
In a race Republican Dan Woog once trailed, he is beginning to look like a winner by continuing to add votes to a tight margin.
His lead grew by 21 votes as of Wednesday morning to a margin of 228 votes over Democrat Jillaire McMillan in House District 19, which includes electorate in Boulder and Weld counties. On Tuesday evening, a Colorado House Republican strategist termed the race still too close to call.
Woog holds 50.2% of 55,686 votes. He added 0.02%, or two-hundredths of a percent, to his margin since late Tuesday.
In the other race of interest, Republican Rebecca Keltie continues to lead Democrat Steph Vigil by 21 votes in House District 16. There was no change overnight in that race as of early Wednesday. The El Paso County House district is separated by 0.06%, or six one-hundredths of one percent, after counting of 41,007 votes.
If neither candidate wins by more than 0.5%, it would trigger an automatic recount of the election.
Already this week, Ryan Gonzalez was declared the winner in Weld County House District 50, a seat which has been in Democrat control for nearly two decades. It gave Republicans a plus-one swing in the Colorado House, and 20 of the 65 seats in the chamber. Republicans need to win the remaining two seats — District 16 and 19 — to upend Democrats’ supermajority in the House. A supermajority is two-thirds of all seats, or in other words 22 seats in the House.
“Under the leadership of House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, Republicans are poised for major gains, having already flipped the first House race in 10 years by winning HD50 in Weld County,” said Tyler Sandberg, chief campaign strategist for Colorado House Republicans. “Coloradans are hungry to stop the far-left shift of our state and want to bring much needed balance to the legislature.”
He notes the deadline for curing ballots is 11:59 p.m. Wednesday: “If anyone wants to help get us over the finish line, they should reach out to Dan Woog‘s and Rebecca Keltie’s campaigns to help them cure ballots by the deadline.”