Early Colorado Election Results V

Bennet (D) has taken healthy lead over Buck (R) in U.S. Senate race, which is very close.

Hickenlooper and Garcia (D) easily won the race for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, but the GOP will probably not be demoted to minor party status as GOP candidate Maes appears to have captured 10% of the vote in the race. But, the American Constitution Party appears to have been upgraded to major party status by achieving more than 10% of the vote in the Governor's race despite not winning a single race in the entire state.

Turnout so far has been 1,627,284 voters, plus a modest number of undervotes and overvotes (about 23,000). This brings total turnout to slightly more than the 2006 midterm elections in absolute numbers of votes, but is low considering that more was at stake in this election than four years ago, and the population growth in Colorado in the last four years. A few more ballots have yet to be counted, so the final turnout total could be a little higher.

To recap other key Colorado races, Republicans appeared to have captured previously Democratically held Secretary of State and State Treasurer posts, and to have defeated incumbent Blue Dog Democrats in Colorado's 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts. The partisan balance of power remained the same on the State Board of Education and CU Regents, and the states other five Congressional Districts.

In the state senate, it appears that Republicans picked up two seats; they needed four to win control of the state senate. In the state house, it appears that Republicans needed to pick up six seats to gain control of the state house. There are six very close races, but the Republicans need to win every one of six very close races to accomplish that, which is less likely than not to happen. If Democrats keep control both houses of the Colorado General Assembly, then they control the redistricting process for the next decade based on the 2010 census.

All of the ballot issues but one were defeated. The one that passed allows the state capital to be relocated during a disaster and was referred by the legislature. Most, if not all, ballot measures over whether medical marijuana dispensaries should be allowed in local communities were defeated.