I’ve already written about the Colorado Democrat primaries in terms of the House race won by DSA leftist Kiros, but at the state level the results were different. At the state level, the more establishment Democrats resisted the challengers, and the somewhat more pro-Israel candidates defeated the more anti-Israel ones, at least in one case.

For now, that is.

In the contest for governor, the current AG of the state – Phil Weiser – will be the Democrats’ nominee. He is Jewish, 58 years old and a law professor (emeritus now). He is labeled “pro-Israel” by The Times of Israel. But why would Israel be an issue for a governorship? Because it seems to be a litmus test for Democrats these days:

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a strong supporter of Israel, defeated Sen. Michael Bennet in the state’s Democratic primary for governor on Tuesday, getting some 55 percent of the vote.

Weiser is the son of a woman born at Buchenwald two days after the concentration camp’s liberation in 1945, and will now be the Democratic Party candidate for governor of the Rocky Mountain state.

In the governor’s race, Bennet initially had the momentum as a three-term senator and the former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. But voters ultimately chose Weiser, the two-term attorney general and former clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. …

Weiser, whose children attended a Jewish day school and is a longtime member of a Denver synagogue, has emphasized his support for Israel’s existence and has said he identifies as a Zionist.

So at the statewide level for the post of governor, there was no victory for far left or for the anti-Israel extremists. Then again, Weiser wasn’t primaried by a DSA type candidate or an Israel-hater, he was running against the current senator from the state. Why was there no far-left challenge from a telegenic Hamas-friendly DSA youngster? My guess is that the DSA does its research carefully, and it realizes that at present at the state level, Colorado just isn’t ready. The DSA doesn’t want to waste its energy and money in a losing game, if possible. So nationwide, for the most part, they are concentrating more on US House districts and/or state legislature districts that are extremely blue, as well as mayoral races in similarly true-blue cities. That way, they can win a primary and they are practically guaranteed to win in November.

However, in Colorado there is also the race for the US Senate, in which there actually was a DSA (to be precise, former DSA) challenger at the state level. And yet the primary was won comfortably by Hickenlooper, the more “establishment” candidate and the incumbent. This is very interesting because it follows the pattern of the races we’ve seen in which the establishment Democrat and incumbent was opposed by a younger DSA socialist, and yet here the pattern was broken because the DSA candidate lost. Of course, this was on the state level, and I think that made all the difference. Hickenlooper is no spring chicken, either; he’s 74. His challenger, a woman named Julie Gonzales, is 43 and much younger than he but not quite as youthful (and, it turns out, not quite as telegenic) as the other socialist challengers who have won their recent primary races.

His basic position in the race:

Hickenlooper, a pro-business centrist, pivoted to the left, at least in his campaign messaging, highlighting his work to expand healthcare access, boost housing affordability, cut environmental emissions and overhaul ICE. …

By highlighting his progressive accomplishments while at the same time staying true to his centrist leanings, Hickenlooper was able to successfully thread the needle.

That’s the secret, I think: pivot to the left, but not too much. He was a known quantity and the more rural parts of the state put him over the top, whereas it was very close in Denver:

Hickenlooper and Gonzales split the vote in Denver, the home base of each candidate. Hickenlooper, however, maintained a double-digit lead across most of the rest of the state, except for Adams County and some counties in southern Colorado, where his lead was in the single digits.

After two terms as Colorado governor, Hickenlooper had statewide name recognition in his favor.

Gonzales has the resume one would expect:

Gonzales, 43, has been a state senator since 2019. Before that, she worked as a community organizer and at an immigration law firm.

And her academic career is also exactly and precisely what you would expect:

Gonzales moved to Colorado after graduating from Yale University in 2005, where she studied History and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration.

Is that a major now?

More:

Gonzales supports Medicare for All, universal child care, a higher federal minimum wage, a ban on congressional stock trading, Abolish ICE, protecting abortion rights and gender affirming care, and Palestinian self-determination. She has stated her belief that Israel is guilty of war crimes and genocide.

But of course.

Gonzales’ Wiki entry also states that she was a DSA member from 2018 to 2024; I wonder what happened to change that. Maybe she thought her chance at a statewide victory would be enhanced if she didn’t have the DSA label? If so, it didn’t work.

I also would guess that the post of mayor of Denver is ripe for the DSA picking. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 1963. The current officeholder is Mike Johnston, who is progressive but not DSA-style progressive – for example, this:

Johnston began 2026 with an open letter to Jared Polis. He used a recent stabbing spree on 16th street as an example for why Colorado needs to make it easier to hold mentally incompetent people in custody, and said the state should jail more shoplifters to protect business owners.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, when he’s up for re-election, he’s challenged from the left. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the challenger wins.

Why am I writing so much about yesterday’s Colorado races? It’s not that I’m so fascinated with the state. Nor am I especially knowledgeable about it. But I think yesterday’s results there illustrate trends in states that are extremely blue in certain areas but paler blue as a whole. At the moment, the socialist victories have occurred in sections of the state rather than the whole. That could change over time, and I assume the DSA is counting on building more and more support.

[ADDENDUM: I do still plan to write Part II of the history of the DSA. Soon, but not today.]