

The typical playbook for winning a statewide, top-ballot race goes something like this: Be Republican enough for Republicans, Democratic enough for Democrats, and moderate enough for all Colorado.

"Purple" Colorado is one of only 13 states represented by a Republican and a Democrat in the U.S. Senate. While the state House of Representatives is firmly under Democratic control, Republicans have a narrow majority in the Senate. The state's recent top-ballot elections have largely gone to the candidate that presents him or herself in the most moderate light.

Meanwhile, voters in this year's governor's race will essentially choose between unabashed progressive Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Walker Stapleton, who spent the run-up to his party's primary election tying himself to President Donald Trump. It's a stretch from recent statewide elections, when one candidate usually had a comfortable stake in moderate territory, at least in voters' eyes. 

"This is a bit of an anomaly, in terms of recent (Colorado) history, but pretty consistent in how the country is going as a whole," Colorado State University political science professor Robert Duffy said. "We have more progressive candidates on the Democratic side and more conservative Trump supporters on the Republican side.

"It's going to be an interesting decision for voters this year as the candidates try to moderate their positions."

Colorado's moderate election history

Colorado picked Democrats for the two top-ballot races in 2016. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet won re-election over over firebrand Republican nominee Darryl Glenn by a wider margin than Hillary Clinton beat Trump in Colorado. 

In 2014, Sen. Cory Gardner defeated Democratic Sen. Mark Udall in a race where Udall was portrayed as having a zealot-like focus on women's reproductive rights (and nicknamed "Mark Uterus" along the way). Gardner, meanwhile, spent the campaign sanding down the edges on Democrats' claim that he held extreme positions on fetal personhood and abortion.

Also in 2014, Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, narrowly fended off Republican Bob Beauprez. Hickenlooper presented himself as a jovial, centrist-minded Democrat who presided over a post-recession economic boom. He famously drank a glass of fracking fluid in 2011 as part of a demonstration of the oil and gas extraction method's eco-friendliness, but during the campaign faced withering attacks for signing gun control legislation following the Aurora theater shooting.

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Previously: Stapleton, Polis win nominations for Colorado governor in primary

Neither of this year's governor campaigns disputes that Colorado voters tend to have a moderate streak (and Polis' campaign distanced him from Udall, describing the latter as a "lefty liberal" and describing Polis as more of a pragmatic progressive). Each sought to paint their own candidate as more in line with mainstream views.

"(My governorship) would be staying the course, working with leadership across the aisle, to fix our roads for the long term, to provide affordable housing, to increase access and affordability in our health care industry and make sure we maximize the amount of dollars we keep in the classroom for our kids," Stapleton said in an interview.

"You can't put Jared Polis in a box," campaign spokesperson Mara Sheldon said. "... For him, it's always about forward, not backward. Not left versus right.

"There's no way I can say Jared is liberal or moderate or conservative. He votes on the issues, not as a liberal or a conservative."

Sheldon notes Polis, a serial entrepreneur before entering politics, is the only Democrat member of the House Liberty Caucus. He also founded the House Cannabis Caucus.

Each campaign pointed to its own bipartisan efforts: Polis in Congress, Stapleton in his time as state treasurer. In almost the same breath, Stapleton seeks to nail Polis to the farthest left on the political spectrum he can, while Polis doesn't want anyone to forget Stapleton's defense of Trump or appearances with one of the most divisive figures in Colorado politics.

Stapleton 'embracing Donald Trump's agenda'

"When you're embracing white nationalism, that's scary," Sheldon said, referring to Stapleton's appearances with Tom Tancredo, a former congressman who has posted anti-Muslim content online and sat on the board of a group characterized by fellow Republican Rep. Mike Coffman as a white supremacist organization. "When you're embracing Donald Trump's agenda, that's scary. This state has always been very forward thinking and a leader on national issues."

Stapleton's campaign pushed back against the Tancredo ties, arguing a recent fundraiser they both appeared at was not a coordinated campaign event. Tancredo also nominated Stapleton to be the Republican standard bearer in the race at the party's state assembly. A campaign spokesperson told 9News, "just because someone has endorsed me does not mean I endorse everything that person says or does."

And while Stapleton invited Republican primary voters in January to Google him and Trump and promised they would "not find one disparaging comment I've made," he has also argued he won't blindly support the president.

"I consistently have said I would support the president and the administration when they are advocating policies that would benefit Coloradans," Stapleton said Wednesday. He pointed to concerns about tariffs and "escalating trade war."

'Far-left candidate' Polis

Polis' support of a Medicare for All plan in Congress, and declared support for universal health care if he wins the governorship, is a target for Stapleton.

Touting his bipartisan credentials, Stapleton notes he co-chaired an anti-Amendment 69 campaign with former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. The $25 billion proposal, also known as ColoradoCare, would have given universal health care to Coloradans on the back of a 10 percent payroll tax. It was drubbed by voters in 2016.

"Both Gov. Ritter and myself thought it would be far more than that," Stapleton said, referring to the costs. "... If (there) was an incentive to move to Colorado for recreational marijuana, wait until you offer people free health care. Individuals with chronic conditions, taking special drugs, would be incentivized to move to Colorado."

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While Polis has long supported universal health care in Congress, he did not support Amendment 69 over concerns of its proposed structure.

He has thrown much of his energy into pushing a "western states consortium," where he'd seek to partner with other states to create an insurance pool residents can buy into, Sheldon said. Universal coverage would be the goal, but the campaign is still balancing that and other proposals for what would be the best option to achieve that goal.

"Having a plan and plans to cover as many people as possible for an affordable rate is Jared's goal, and it's been his goal for years," she said.

While Stapleton referred to Polis as a "far-left candidate," Sheldon points to a recent Reuters poll showing 70 percent of Americans, including 52 percent of Republicans, support Medicare for All. Despite attempts at fringe labels, that's proof Polis' position is closer to the mainstream than his opponent would acknowledge, she argued.

And that's just the start

With the election of Colorado's next governor less than two months away, Duffy, the political science professor, thinks the political headwinds make it Polis' race to lose.

A poll from just before the June primary showed almost 7 in 10 voters unaffiliated with a political party — the largest bloc of voters in the state — held negative views of Trump, with 57 percent saying they viewed him very unfavorably. Of the 241,000 unaffiliated Coloradans to vote in the state's first open primary earlier this year, 60 percent cast a ballot for Democratic contests.

Swaying that bloc, or simply not alienating them, will be the as Polis and Stapleton make their arguments on topics including education funding, energy and environment, gun rights and control, the urban-rural divide and more.

"You don't need to be a political scientist or a rocket scientist or any kind of scientist to figure out that in this state, where it's roughly split into thirds, that the unaffiliated third is important," Duffy said.

Duffy described two typical strategies for this point in the race: Turning out the base and persuasion of the middle. In this hyper-polarized time, Duffy said Democrats seem to have the money and energy while Republicans hold control of both chambers of commerce and the White House.

"My sense is (the Polis campaign) probably feel(s) like this is their race to lose," Duffy said, noting that he'd flip the argument in favorable Republican years, like 2014. "So they won't do anything to lose. ... My sense is, like a lot of other Democratic candidates in purplish states, they'll say, 'People know where I stand on this, so I just need to turn out my people and not antagonize the voters in the middle.'"

That's not to count Stapleton out. There's still almost two months before Election Day and much can happen. Duffy suggested watching advertising spending for a sense of how competitive the campaigns and outside groups think the race is.

Can Larimer County predict the election's outcome?

The last time Colorado elected a governor, Larimer County went relatively decisively for Democrat John Hickenlooper.

In the same election, the county also nudged Republican Sen. Cory Gardner toward his victory over incumbent Mark Udall — making Larimer the only large county to split the two top-ballot races of 2014.

Larimer County, home to a left-leaning population center in Fort Collins and surrounded by more conservative rural areas, has long been listed as a bellwether for how the state will go. Larimer County voters picked the winner of every presidential contest of the modern era, 1980 and 2016 excepted.

So which way will it go as Colorado chooses between Democrat U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who represents Larimer County in Congress, and Republican Treasurer Walker Stapleton?

Colorado State University political science professor Robert Duffy argues this election season looks favorable to Democrats as whole, as they seek to capitalize on an unpopular president and trends of the out-of-power party picking up seats in the midterm elections.

"You never really know,” Duffy said. “Hindsight is always 20-20. But all the signals point to this being a good election for Democrats nationally."

Gardner pulled off his victory over Udall, a Boulder Democrat (like Polis), in a year favorable to Republicans and against a campaign former CSU political science professor John Straayer called “flat.”

Coincidentally, Gardner also had some of the same Larimer County perks that Polis holds.

Before redistricting following the 2010 census, Gardner represented Larimer County as the U.S. Representative for the Fourth Congressional District. That means things like name recognition from his congressional races and constituent services still lingered on many voters’ minds.

After the census, Polis started representing Larimer County as part of Colorado’s Second Congressional District. And, in presidential election years at least, he’s won Larimer County’s overall vote on the way to electoral victory. Polis spokesperson Mara Sheldon notes that those victories have come even as Larimer County’s top elected officials all hail from the Republican Party. (Though, coincidentally, one of the years Polis failed to carry Larimer County is the same year it split for Hickenlooper and Gardner).

That could mean the advantages that Gardner carried in Larimer County could translate to Polis in his own statewide race, regardless of party affiliation and barring major bombshells between now and Election Day.

"(Larimer County voters knowing Polis) should give him an advantage in one of the bellwether counties,” Duffy said. “He has name recognition and he was winning pretty handily. That's not something Stapleton is going to have going for him in Larimer County. But who knows for Jefferson and Arapahoe and other counties."


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