Less than two weeks away from the Democratic convention in Denver, Colorado played host yesterday to three competitive primaries. Here is a good background on the races. In short, each primary winner is a likely general election winner; at stake was the safe Democratic seat vacated by Rep. Mark Udall, who is now running for Senate, and two safe Republican seats, one vacated by immigration-baiter Tom Tancredo, and the other belonging to Rep. Doug Lamborn, a one-term social conservative with a down-the-line GOP voting record.
Jared Polis, a businessman and former chairman of the Colorado Board of Education, won the Democratic primary with 42 percent of the vote, defeating president of the State Senate Joan Fitz-Gerald (38 percent) and environmentalist Will Shafroth (20 percent), a reformer who had won endorsements from major newspapers. Polis spent millions of his own dollars on the race.
Lamborn was reelected by 45 percent of the electorate. In that race, tax cutter Jeff Crank, who opposed Congress' economic stimulus package, received 29 percent of the vote, and retired Air Force Major General Bentley Rayburn received 26 percent.
The second GOP primary was won by Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, an Iraq war veteran.
--Dana Goldstein
