Voters across Colorado delivered decisive results in Tuesday’s election on key ballot questions and in hard-fought municipal and school board races, at least most of the time.
With vote-counting still underway in some places Wednesday, turnout appeared roughly in line with past odd-year elections — which is to say much lower than in years with races for president or state offices on the ballot. Numbers reported by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office Wednesday morning showed that 1.68 million ballots had been counted by county clerks so far, reflecting participation by at least 38.1% of registered voters, or 42.6% of voters whose status is active.
Those figures still could inch up, but they are slightly lower than turnout in the 2021 election and slightly higher than 2019 turnout.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s results:
Voters defended TABOR — again
Colorado may have a Democratic trifecta in state government, but state leaders’ Proposition HH went down in flames — and it wasn’t even close. Perhaps the complexity of the measure doomed it, with Democrats throwing in a significant increase in education funding alongside the measure’s headline goal of delivering property tax relief, all of it paid for by diverting portions of future tax refunds.
Or perhaps the rejection was the latest message from voters that they like the restrictions put in place by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights — and they’re skeptical of moves to raise the state’s TABOR caps.
Elsewhere on the ballot, results showed voters were on track to approve tax measures that will, among other things, allow the state to keep excess tobacco and nicotine tax collections, permanently extend Denver’s preschool sales tax and grant a mill levy override in Golden to boost fire department funding. But Brighton voters handily rejected a sales tax increase to pay for police operations.
Conservatives outmuscled Gov. Polis
Voters’ rejection of Prop. HH gave another ballot victory to conservative groups, which were among the biggest opponents of the TABOR measure. Advance Colorado and other groups have notched several victories in recent years by fighting Colorado Democrats’ agenda on the statewide ballot and through the courts. After defeating a 2019 TABOR-limiting measure, they also convinced voters last year to lower the income tax rate for a second time in two years, though Gov. Jared Polis supported that tax cut.
Tuesday’s defeat of HH is a rebuke of sorts for Polis and legislative Democrats, who had put it forth as their policy proposal to address historic property tax increases that are coming early next year.
Now, with time running short, the pressure is on them to come up with a new plan.
Denver voted for change on the DPS board
Two incumbents on the drama-filled Denver Public Schools Board of Education were sent packing by city voters after calls for change from parent groups and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston. Along with John Youngquist, a former East High School principal elected in the open at-large race, the three winners were backed by a deep-pocketed political group with charter school ties — delivering a defeat for the teachers union.
Aurora stuck with Mike Coffman
Four years after Aurora voters elected former U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman as mayor by a razor-thin margin, the Republican was on track to easily win re-election Tuesday night. He declared victory, though his leading challenger, Councilman Juan Marcano, had not yet conceded.
While progressives had hoped to regain ground on the City Council, early returns showed conservatives holding them off — and potentially even expanding their majority in the state’s most ethnically and racially diverse city.
A nail-biter in the Arvada mayor’s race
Two large suburban cities outside Denver had open mayor’s races Tuesday. In Lakewood, City Councilwoman Wendi Strom took a sizable lead over her challengers for the office. But in Arvada, it’s been a close race for mayor between John Marriott and Lauren Simpson. Late Tuesday, Simpson took the lead — and was ahead at one point by as few as 20 votes.
By 1 p.m. Wednesday, her lead had grown to 388 votes out of more than 44,000 counted so far, a 0.88-percentage-point margin, and Simpson declared victory.
Staff writers Nick Coltrain, Seth Klamann, Saja Hindi, John Aguilar, Jessica Seaman and Joe Rubino contributed to this story.
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