3 legislative races that show the breadth of the blue wave in Colorado

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The scope of the Democratic wave that swept across the country — and through Colorado — on Tuesday is difficult to put into words. 

Republicans thought they’d already hit rock bottom in Colorado only to find out this week that it could, in fact, get worse. Democrats secured their first simultaneous supermajorities in the state House and Senate, flipped two — possibly three — congressional seats in the state, and passed a pair of tax measures boosting state revenues and spending authority. 

The Colorado Sun has been scouring the state’s election results to understand what happened and how. A trio of state House races in the Colorado Springs area may provide a clue.

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Republicans are on track to lose two legislative races that were on no one’s radar: House Districts 15 and 21, held by Reps. Scott Bottoms and Mary Bradfield, both of whom weren’t seeking reelection this year.

In a third race, House District 22, Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf of Colorado Springs was hanging on Friday afternoon by 2.5 percentage points.

“Those are for sure the districts demonstrating the size of the tsunami,” Republican strategist Tyler Sandberg said. “That those three are nail-biters is notable regardless of outcome.”

If you know anything about the legislature, you know that Bottoms and DeGraaf have been among the most outspoken and conservative Republicans in the Capitol. Over the past few years, the pair have been behind or supported legislation seeking to outlaw abortion, limiting rights for transgender people and promoting election conspiracies.

Earlier this year, Bottoms — who ran unsuccessfully for governor this year — claimed, without evidence, that a pedophile ring was operating at the state Capitol.   

House District 15’s voters in particular have sent some of the furthest-right, and most controversial, representatives to Denver in recent memory: Bottoms, Dave Williams and Gordon Klingenschmitt.

Bradfield didn’t generate as many headlines in the General Assembly, but her district is ruby red.

In 2024, Bradfield beat her Democratic opponent Liz Rosenbaum 58% to 42%, or by 16 percentage points. Bottoms beat his Democratic challenger, Jeff Livingston, 58% to 42%, or 16 points. And DeGraaf beat Democrat Michael Pierson 57% to 39%, or 18 percentage points.

The Democratic swings in those districts this year stand out both in their breadth and in where they happened.

In House District 15, Livingston was beating Republican Pricella Tiegen, a conservative activist, by a little more than 1 percentage point on Friday afternoon. That represents a 17-point swing in two years.

In House District 21, Democrat Michelle Tweed, a Navy veteran, was beating Republican Brenda Miller, an Army veteran, by 2 points on Friday afternoon. That represents an 18-point swing from 2024.

And in House District 22, DeGraaf’s close shave in his race against Pierson, running against him for a second straight cycle, represents a roughly 15.5-point swing.

The Associated Press had yet to call those three races Friday afternoon, but there didn’t appear to be a realistic chance of the candidates’ leads flipping. 

Why the races provide such an important election-over-election comparison

Besides the big swings in the results, here’s why the races stand apart:

• Livingston and Pierson ran this year for the second straight cycle, which allows for an easy election-year-to-election-year comparison. Yes, they may have built up some name recognition among the electorate, but that alone wouldn’t explain a double-digit shift in the vote.
• Effectively no money was spent by Democrats to help Livingston, Pierson and Tweed.
• These are not swing districts. They are — or were until now — unequivocally Republican strongholds. In past elections where Republicans have lost legislative ground in Colorado, it’s been in places that have maybe a 7- to 10-point GOP advantage. When House Districts 15, 21 and 22 were redrawn by Colorado’s independent legislative redistricting commission in 2021, they were supposed to favor Republicans by 26, 17 and 27 percentage points, respectively.

So why the change of heart among voters in those districts?

On social media, DeGraaf suggested Republican losses stemmed from Republican elected officials obstructing President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

“This election was a referendum against corruption and those obstructing the America-First agenda presented by our president,” he said.

Tiegen’s husband, John Tiegen, posted on social media that his wife was left out to dry by Republican leadership in the state. 

“Republican leadership was nonexistent in her campaign,” he said.

Miller hasn’t commented on her apparent loss. 

Only voters in House Districts 15, 21 and 22 can definitively answer why they lurched so far to the left this year. But one thing is clear: turnout, based on ballots counted through Friday afternoon, dropped precipitously in 2026 from 2024 in those districts.

• In House District 15, 16% fewer votes were cast, with the total number of votes for the Republican candidate in the races falling by 31%.
• In House District 21, nearly a quarter fewer voters cast ballots in the race this year, with the total number of votes for the Republican candidate in the races falling by 35%.
• In House District 22, about 15% fewer votes were cast, with the total number of votes for the Republican candidate in the races falling by 23%.

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The 5th Congressional District

House Districts 15, 21 and 22 are in the 5th Congressional District.

When you look at what happened in those legislative races, the 18.5-point swing in the congressional contest (through Friday afternoon) starts to make sense, too.

About 15% fewer votes were cast this year in the congressional race between Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank and his Democratic challenger, Jessica Killin, compared with 2024, according to ballots counted through Friday afternoon. A few thousand ballots may still be left to count in El Paso County, but not enough to make up that turnout gap.

To put that turnout decline into perspective, Crank won with about 198,000 votes two years ago, whereas Killin had nearly 156,000 on Friday afternoon.

Compared with 2024, the total votes for Crank in the district were down about 29% as of Friday afternoon, while Killin had received about 5% more votes than the last Democrat to run against Crank.

In fact, Killin’s vote total was about 9,000 higher as of Friday afternoon than Democrat River Gassen, Crank’s 2024 opponent, received. Gassen lost to Crank by 14 percentage points.

Statewide turnout was at 67% of active, registered voters through Friday afternoon, which is already 1 percentage point higher than during the 2022 midterm election with votes still being counted. In 2024, a presidential election year, turnout in Colorado among active, registered voters was 79.5%, or 12.5 points higher than what it is this year, according to counted ballots so far.

Through Friday afternoon, about 15% fewer votes had been counted statewide this year than in 2024.