Colorado’s primary is soon upon us.
By the time this column is read, the June 25th election day will be but three weeks out. Though in this era of mail-in voting, election day is when ballots are counted, not when they are cast. For many voters, that hour of deciding and filling in those circles is coming even sooner.
The reference in that last sentence to “many voters” is a bit tongue in cheek. The notion of holding an election by which each party selects its nominees in the doldrums of early summer is not exactly designed to promote high turnout.
Even with Colorado’s recent allowance for unaffiliated voters to participate in the primary of their choosing, turnout remains limited. Primaries for top-of-ticket offices such as governor struggle to attract vast numbers.
Note that no statewide offices are up for election this year. Voter participation in primaries for lower-level offices is, you guessed it, lower.
Some may argue that low turnout, in and of itself, is not that problematic. If voters are not informed or motivated by a race, better they sit it out.
That works in theory. However, its practical effect is to hand over still more influence to the loudest, angriest types on both sides of the aisle. If you are looking for explanations for the ever-increasing polarization that defines our politics, low-participation primaries are high on that list.
Couple such low turnout with the sad fact that a vast number of districts are non-competitive, meaning that whoever wins the primary effectively wins the seat, and you have an even fuller explanation for our political dysfunction.
My premise is straightforward. Namely, the prime problem facing our country is the growing extremism in both parties, even if one of those parties has taken it into overdrive. That is the lens through which I assess our homegrown primary contests.
The storyline on the Republican side centers around the congressional races in the three districts with a GOP tilt. All three incumbents, the highest-ranking Republican elected officials in our fair state, are vacating their offices. Ken Buck had enough and left early; Doug Lamborn is calling it a day after nine terms; and Lauren Boebert hopscotched to more fertile political territory.
Each of these races features one or more mainstream conservative candidates against a full-blown, over-the-top MAGA figure who runs toward the outrage instead of soft selling it.
In numerical order, district 3 should by all rights belong to respected attorney Jeff Hurd. He was close to an even-shot to win this nomination well before Boebert fled the scene and asked forgiving eastern plains voters for a mulligan.
Hurd is opposed by a total of five other GOP candidates, most prominent among them Ron Hanks fresh off being on-site for Jan. 6 and a campaign commercial in which he shot up an office copier that he pretended was a voting machine. For real.
Congressional District 4, Boebert’s newly discovered turf, finds her facing off with five other Republicans, including Deborah Flora, Jerry Sonnenberg, Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf. Give any of them, most plausibly Flora or Sonnenberg, a one-on-one matchup and Boebert could well be defeated.
But that would be too logical. Republicans, being Republicans, cannot or won’t get out of their own way. In a fractured field and with Donald Trump’s endorsem*nt, Boebert likely coasts to victory. If she pulls off her district-switching caper, that story could be headlined, “The Queen’s Gambit.”
The site of the head-to-head contest is CD 5 in and around Colorado Springs where State GOP Chair Dave Williams faces longtime conservative radio talker Jeff Crank. Williams has found nothing wrong with employing all the assets of the State Party on his behalf. He could teach the disgraced Bob Menendez a thing or two about self-dealing.
Were Republican voters, with a few unaffiliated types joining them, to select the two Jeffs (Hurd and Crank) along with, say, Flora, it would provide a sign of rebirth and serious purpose. It would offer at least a start down the long road of making Colorado again a competitive, two-party state.
Go the other way with Hanks, Boebert and Williams, and paint Colorado an ever-deeper shade of blue for the extended future. Goodbye cobalt blue; hello indigo.
If Fan Duel were to sponsor this column, their odds would favor a split decision with Boebert prevailing due to the surplus of Republican candidates (and egos) to be joined in a new delegation by Hurd and Crank.
One last piece related to these Republican congressional primaries: For all the talk about election integrity and “swamps,” consider that three, count ‘em, of the MAGA-world candidates are carpetbaggers, having moved to new districts to run.
That applies to Boebert, obviously, as well as to Hanks who forsook his Fremont County home and the deservedly underestimated Janik Joshi who left Colorado Springs for Adams County and a longshot bid for district 8.
But hot primaries involving extreme figures are not only to be found on the Republican side. Though lower on the food chain, Democrats are hosting a number of such contests for state legislative seats.
The headline match is in the central Denver district currently represented by the flame-thrower, Elisabeth Epps. Imagine Lauren Boebert minus some social graces and Epps is what you get.
Her opponent is Air Force veteran Sean Camacho. For many voters, his particulars are secondary as his identity is simply that of not-Elisabeth-Epps.
Epps won the safe Democratic seat two years ago over another mainstream candidate with strong party credentials. While incumbency is usually an advantage, in this case familiarity may have bred voter contempt.
The caucus of legislators who belong to or sympathize with the Democratic Socialists of America is growing in numbers and standing. Their views are just as out there on the left as anything professed by wackier types on the right. Neither party holds a monopoly on escalating extremism.
The race between Camacho and the theatrical Epps alongside a handful of other Democratic primaries will say much as to whether this is still the party of Polis, Bennet and Hickenlooper or whether it is fast morphing into something quite different.
The election results will be known a few weeks down the road. Also to be determined in months to come is the distinct possibility that this will be Colorado’s last primary of its kind.
If the State Supreme Court blesses the ballot title and the voters give their assent in November, the current system will be replaced by an all-comers primary not separated by party affiliation with the top four finishers advancing to the general election.
That proposal may be imperfect. But anything that drives politics, even marginally, in a centrist direction has to beat the current system which serves those on the fringes all too well.
Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann
