Democrat John Hickenlooper Wins Colorado Governor’s Race

Democrat John Hickenlooper Wins Colorado Governor’s Race

DENVER—Democrat John Hickenlooper defeated Republican challenger Bob Beauprez in a tight Colorado governor’s race, the Associated Press projected Wednesday morning.

Mr. Hickenlooper, who had been widely seen as a lock for re-election just months earlier, trailed Mr. Beauprez late Tuesday evening. But he overcame the deficit and had pulled ahead by a 48.3% to 47.1% margin with more than 93% of precincts reporting Wednesday morning.

Under Colorado law, the governor’s race could trigger an automatic recount if the difference between the two candidates ends up being half a percentage point or less, and both campaigns had been preparing for that possibility.

On Wednesday morning, Democratic lawmakers crowded into the state Capitol to watch Mr. Hickenlooper speak, many of them bleary eyed and visibly relieved that he had managed to win a race that many Democrats found surprisingly close.

“We could not have done it without the encouragement of people from all over Colorado,” Mr. Hickenlooper told an emotional group of supporters, clearly exhausted, but smiling as he spoke. “Colorado has and will continue to grow. So let’s get on with it.”

The apparent victory of Mr. Hickenlooper, a former Denver mayor, oil geologist and brew-pub owner, provided a much needed sliver of victory for Colorado Democrats in a state election that had gone terribly for them.

The Colorado GOP was buoyed Tuesday evening by several state victories including Rep. Cory Gardner’s defeat of Sen. Mark Udall, part of a Republican wave that allowed the party to seize control of the Senate. In one of the most expensive House contests in the country, GOP Rep. Mike Coffman also soundly beat Democrat Andrew Romanoff in an immigrant heavy district that Democrats once believed they would pick up.

Mr. Hickenlooper had trumpeted his affability and attempts to tack to the center in a state where independent voters outnumber either party. But the last several years saw him presiding over Colorado during an unprecedented period of political tumult. The easygoing governor was often caught in the midst of bitter debates over issues like gun control and the death penalty, which shadowed him during the campaign.

Mr. Beauprez, a bison rancher who had lost a race for governor last decade, wasn’t initially regarded as a serious threat to Mr. Hickenlooper, who had cruised to an easy first-term victory in 2010. But he ran a tightly messaged campaign in which he sought to cast Mr. Hickenlooper as a liberal who had pushed politically purple Colorado too far left and eschewed tough decisions.

In the months leading up to the election, Mr. Hickenlooper made a series of blunders that allowed Mr. Beauprez to overcome some of the goodwill the governor had earned from shepherding the state through a tide of natural disasters and the mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting, Mr. Hickenlooper signed a set of controversial gun restrictions passed by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature in 2013. But he appeared to backtrack on his support earlier this year, telling a group of sheriffs who opposed the laws that he hadn’t realized they would be so divisive.

Mr. Hickenlooper defended his approach on the campaign trail, saying he tried to heed multiple viewpoints on difficult issues. His supporters also pointed to his role in forging a compromise between environmentalists and Colorado’s oil and gas industry that kept antifracking measures off the ballot as evidence of his leadership in a divided state. Source