Colorado’s Primary Results Are In, and the Voters Have Once Again Proven They Have the Memory of a Goldfish
DENVER — Well, folks, we did it again. Colorado held its primary elections on Tuesday, and shockingly, the sky did not fall, the state did not secede to become a giant weed farm, and no, Lauren Boebert did not spontaneously combust on live TV (though many of you *really* wanted that). But what we got instead was a masterclass in political schizophrenia, where the voters simultaneously yelled “Burn it all down” and “Please, sir, can I have some more establishment slop?”
Let’s start with the headliner: the 3rd Congressional District. If you’ve been living under a rock—or just trying to avoid the political equivalent of a root canal—this is the race where Boebert, the human embodiment of a Fox News comment section, tried to ditch her own district because she was polling like a lead balloon. She pulled a classic political Houdini and hopped over to the 4th District, where she was supposed to get rolled by a more “moderate” Republican. And yet, the voters of the 4th looked at Boebert, looked at the other options, and said, “Yeah, we’ll take the chaos goblin who thinks the library is a socialist indoctrination center, please.”
She didn’t just win; she crushed it. Boebert beat out a field of five Republicans, including the perfectly competent Jerry Sonnenberg, who probably owns a tie and has read a book this decade. But nah, Colorado Republicans saw a woman who once compared the separation of church and state to a “bearded Marxist” and thought, “That’s my gal.” So congratulations, 4th District: you’ve officially chosen the political version of a raccoon in a dumpster. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s absolutely going to pick a fight with a possum for no reason.
Meanwhile, over in the 5th District, the GOP primary was a dumpster fire that somehow managed to be both boring and insane. The winner? Jeff Crank, a guy who is so milquetoast he makes a plain bagel look spicy. He beat out Dave Williams, the state GOP chair who spent his campaign trying to out-crazy Boebert, which is like trying to out-eat a competitive hot dog eater. Williams ran on a platform of “We need to ban drag queens from reading to children” and “Stop the steal, but also stop the steal of my dignity.” It didn’t work. Turns out, even in deep-red Colorado Springs, voters have limits. Who knew?
But let’s not ignore the Democratic side, because they’re not exactly a beacon of sanity either. In the 8th District, we had a slugfest between Yadira Caraveo, the incumbent who is basically a cardboard cutout of “moderate Democrat,” and a primary challenger who ran on a platform of “Actually, we should maybe do something about the homeless crisis.” Caraveo won, because Colorado Democrats are terrified of anything that smells like progress. She’ll now face a Republican opponent who will accuse her of being a Marxist, and she’ll respond by talking about “bipartisan infrastructure bills” until everyone falls asleep. Thrilling.
And then there’s the 1st District, where Diana DeGette, the Queen of Never Being Challenged, won her primary against a literal ghost. I’m pretty sure she ran unopposed, but even if she had an opponent, it wouldn’t matter. She’s been in Congress since the Clinton administration, and she’ll be there until the heat death of the universe. At this point, she’s not a representative; she’s a fixture, like the weird smell in the Capitol Building.
Now, let’s talk about the Secretary of State race, because that’s where the real chaos energy is. Jena Griswold, the Democratic incumbent who has spent the last four years fighting off GOP attempts to turn Colorado into a polling place for the Capitol Insurrection, won her primary easily. But the Republican primary was a three-ring circus, with candidates who each promised to “secure the election” by, presumably, burning all the ballots and installing a benevolent dictator. The winner was Pam Anderson, a former election official who is actually... competent? I know, shocking. She’s the kind of Republican who believes in things like “paper trails” and “not getting sued for election fraud.” She’ll probably lose in November because the GOP base will stay home out of spite.
But the real story? The real story is that Colorado voters are exhausted. The turnout was pathetic, like a JV basketball game in a blizzard. People are tired of the screaming, the lies, the Boeberts and the Caraveos and the endless parade of politicians who promise to fix everything and then just make it worse. So they stayed home, leaving the decisions to the weirdos who actually care about school board races and county commissioner elections. And those weirdos? They picked Boebert. They picked the guy who wants to ban books. They picked the same old same old.
So congratulations, Colorado. You’ve held a primary, and you’ve managed to make everyone slightly more miserable. The general election is in November, and I can already guarantee you it’s going to be a trainwreck. But hey, at least we have legal weed to numb the pain.
Let’s be real: the only winner here is cynicism.
Final Thoughts
The Colorado primary results underscore a deepening fracture within the GOP, where the anti-establishment wing, buoyed by Trump's lingering influence, appears to be consolidating power at the expense of traditional party stalwarts. On the Democratic side, the outcomes suggest a pragmatic electorate that, while progressive in rhetoric, still prioritizes electability over ideological purity in key swing districts. Ultimately, these primaries weren't just about candidate selection; they were a litmus test for whether Colorado remains a purple battleground or cements a sharper partisan divide ahead of November.