Colorado Democrats hit two-thirds as Republicans lose 7 legislative seats 

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Six Republican-held seats in the Colorado House have flipped to Democrats on preliminary returns. Not one Democratic seat went the other way.

That is the shape of Tuesday night in the state legislature, and it is enough to put Democrats at two-thirds in both chambers for the first time.

These results are preliminary. As of this posting, no race described here had been called by a decision desk and no candidate in any of these districts had conceded.

The figures below are from the Secretary of State’s unofficial posting as of 8:22 a.m. MST Wednesday, with 2,247,065 ballots cast statewide, 55% turnout, and 61 of Colorado’s 64 counties finished reporting election-night results. Three counties were still partially reported. Ballots are still being counted and the numbers will move.

The six

District	Leader	Margin (votes / points)
HD-19	Jillaire McMillan (D)	7,396 (18.78)
HD-16	Steph Vigil (D)	4,534 (16.64)
HD-50	Tommy Butler (D)	3,139 (20.30)
HD-51	Jacki Marsh (D)	1,753 (4.62)
HD-15	Jeff K. Livingston (D)	1,090 (3.80)
HD-21	Michelle Tweed (D)	367 (2.04)

Add the state Senate’s District 30, where Democrat Kevin Leung leads appointed Republican Sen. John Carson 47,395 to 42,961, and Democrats have taken seven seats off Republicans and lost none.

Here is the arithmetic. The House moves from 43 Democrats and 22 Republicans to 49 and 16. The Senate moves from 23 and 12 to 24 and 11.

Two-thirds of the members elected to each chamber, the standard the Colorado Constitution sets, is 44 of 65 in the House and 24 of 35 in the Senate. Reaching it lets the majority refer constitutional amendments to the ballot without a vote from the other side, and override a governor’s veto.

Both chambers land on it, and the Senate lands on it exactly. At 24 seats, Democrats there can do either only with every member of the caucus voting yes. A single absence puts it out of reach.

The referral power is not unlimited. The constitution caps each General Assembly at amendments to six articles.

Two districts decided by three votes and 110

Two of the six were the only legislative races in the 2024 general election to trigger a mandatory recount.

In House District 16, which covers part of El Paso County, Republican Rebecca Keltie unseated Democratic Rep. Steph Vigil by three votes in 2024, 20,641 to 20,638 after the recount. Keltie is not on this year’s ballot. Vigil now leads Republican Jill Haffley by 4,534 votes, better than 16 points.

Haffley, a retired 30-year public school teacher and vice president of the Colorado Springs District 11 school board, told RMV in September exactly what was riding on the seat.

“I hope voters understand how important this seat is to the balance of power in the Colorado House,” she said. “Democrats are currently one seat short of a two-thirds supermajority, and HD16 is one of the seats that could determine the change. Healthy government needs balance.”

She was right about the stake and is on the losing side of it.

In House District 19, which takes in parts of Weld and Boulder counties and the towns of Erie, Firestone, Frederick and Dacono, Republican Rep. Dan Woog beat McMillan by 110 votes in 2024, also after a recount, 28,420 to 28,310. He now trails her by 7,396, nearly 19 points.

Woog told RMV in October that his district was “among the most politically balanced and competitive in the state.” Unaffiliated voters make up about 53% of its active voters as of Oct. 1, outnumbering either party more than two to one, so he could hold the seat only by winning well beyond his own party. This time he did not.

He is one of two Republican incumbents on the list. The other is Rep. Ryan Gonzalez in House District 50, downtown Greeley, who won by 563 votes in 2024 and now trails former Greeley City Council member Tommy Butler by 3,139, better than 20 points. Gonzalez sponsored the Colorado Champions Home Loan Program, a first-term bill extending state mortgage assistance to first responders, which was enacted this year.

In four of the six districts, the Republican on the ballot was not the sitting member. Those four are Haffley in HD-16, Pricella Tiegen in HD-15, Brenda Miller in HD-21 and Amy Parks in HD-51, where Rep. Ron Weinberg did not appear on the ballot.

Three of the six are in El Paso County

House Districts 15, 16 and 21 all sit in El Paso County. All three flipped.

That is the result hardest to square with recent history. HD-15 and HD-21 were not close races.

Rep. Scott Bottoms carried HD-15 by 16 points in 2024 and by nearly 18 points in 2022. Rep. Mary Bradfield carried HD-21 by 16.5 points in 2024 and 16.8 in 2022. Neither was on the target list Democrats’ national legislative campaign committee published in July.

Both flipped anyway. HD-15 went by 1,090 votes and HD-21 by 367.

Three of the six Democrats now leading lost the same seat two years ago and came back for it. They are Vigil in HD-16, McMillan in HD-19 and Livingston in HD-15. Vigil and McMillan both lost in 2024 by margins thin enough to force a recount.

What Republicans held, and what they did not take

On preliminary returns, Democrats lead in every Senate seat they were defending, including the four that Democrats’ national legislative campaign committee singled out in July. They are District 3 in Pueblo, District 11 in Colorado Springs, District 15 in Loveland and District 27 in Centennial.

The Republicans’ one Senate loss is the seat that delivered the two-thirds. Carson holds District 30 by appointment and has not previously faced the district’s voters. The seat covers Highlands Ranch, Castle Pines, Lone Tree and Roxborough Park, and the last Republican to win it, Kevin Van Winkle in 2022, took about 54% of the vote.

Carson, a Highlands Ranch lawyer who has served as a CU regent and as president of the Douglas County school board, told the Colorado Sun in October that he liked his chances. “It’ll be close, I’m working hard,” he said. “I feel good about my positions, so we’ll see.”

Leung, a Castle Pines car-wash owner and computer scientist who has served on the Douglas County school board and the South Metro Fire Rescue board, leads him by 4,434 votes.

On the House side, Republicans took none of the four Democratic seats the party moved to defend. Rep. Bob Marshall leads by nearly 14 points in HD-43 in Highlands Ranch, and Democrats also hold HD-25 in Evergreen, HD-46 in Pueblo and HD-59 in Durango.

The calendar from here

None of this is final, and the calendar says so.

Voters whose ballots were rejected for a signature problem have eight days after the election to fix them, and military and overseas ballots are accepted through the same deadline.

County canvass boards complete their canvass and send official abstracts to the Secretary of State by Nov. 25, under the state’s election calendar. The Secretary of State compiles the returns and orders any mandatory recounts by Nov. 27. Mandatory recounts, where required, must be finished by Dec. 4.

Statewide certification comes after that. By statute the Secretary certifies official statewide results only once every county abstract is in and every mandatory recount is complete.

A recount is automatic under state law when the margin between the top two candidates is within one half of one percent of the leading candidate’s vote total. None of the seven flipped seats is that close. The narrowest, HD-21 at 367 votes, sits at about 4% of the leader’s total, eight times the threshold.

Exactly one contest in Colorado is inside that threshold, out of 302 on the state’s results report. In the State Board of Education race for the 3rd Congressional District, Republican Sherri M. Wright leads Democrat Barb Clementi 147,267 to 146,531, a margin of 736 out of 293,798 cast.

Half a percent of Wright’s total is 736.3, which puts the margin inside the range requiring a recount by three-tenths of a vote. Clementi led for part of election night, and with cures and overseas ballots still arriving, it will move.