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Colorado State Senate elections, 2024
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| 2024 Colorado Senate Elections | |
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| Primary | June 25, 2024 |
| General | November 5, 2024 |
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Elections for the Colorado State Senate took place in 2024. The general election was on November 5, 2024. The primary was June 25, 2024. The filing deadline was March 19, 2024.
Eighteen of 35 seats of the Colorado state Senate were up for election on November 5, 2024. Heading into the elections, there were 23 Democrats and 12 Republicans. No incumbents lost in primaries.
Following the election, Democrats maintained a 23-12 majority, and the state remained a Democratic trifecta.
Democrats won a 23-12 majority in the Senate and a veto-proof 46-19 majority in the state House after the 2022 elections. Colorado requires a two-thirds vote to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot or override a gubernatorial veto. That amounts to a minimum of 24 votes in the Senate and 44 votes in the House, assuming no vacancies.
Democrats needed to win one Senate seat and lose no more than two House seats to be able to put a legislative referral on the ballot without Republican votes or to override a gubernatorial veto. Republicans needed to maintain their seats in the Senate and win at least three more House seats to prevent a Democratic supermajority.
The Colorado Sun's Jesse Paul wrote that with a supermajority, Democrats could "refer constitutional amendments to the ballot without Republican support and ask voters to make lasting changes to the tax system and around social issues."[1] Paul wrote that a supermajority would also give Democrats the ability to override Gov. Jared Polis' (D) vetoes: "Polis this year nixed a number of labor-backed measures, and the threat of a gubernatorial veto has previously kept other liberal proposals, like rent stabilization and progressive tax policies, from advancing in the legislature."[1]
In an interview with The Colorado Sun's Brian Eason, Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen (R) said that Republicans are trying to maintain their seats to preserve balance: "The further and further you get away from balance, the less meaningful those conversations are."[2] Lundeen also told Colorado Politics' Marianne Goodland that he believes that "people are struggling with kitchen table issues and are opposed to how the economy has been handled."[3]
CNalysis, an outlet that rates state legislative races, rated two races as Tilt R, one race as Likely D, and one race as Very Likely R.[4] Click here to see the race ratings for each race.
The primary was June 25, 2024. The filing deadline was March 19, 2024. The Colorado Senate was one of 85 state legislative chambers with elections in 2024. There are 99 chambers throughout the country.
Party control
| Colorado State Senate | |||
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| Party | As of November 5, 2024 | After November 6, 2024 | |
| Democratic Party | 23 | 23 | |
| Republican Party | 12 | 12 | |
| Total | 35 | 35 | |
Candidates
General election
Colorado State Senate general election 2024 |
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| Office | Other | ||
| District 2 |
Caryn Ann Harlos (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 5 |
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| District 6 |
Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 10 |
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John Hjershman (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 12 |
John Angle (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 13 |
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| District 14 |
Jeff Brosius (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 16 |
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Bennett Rutledge (Libertarian Party) (Write-in) |
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| District 17 |
Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 18 |
Gary Swing (Unity Party) |
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| District 19 |
Ryan Van Gundy (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 21 |
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| District 23 |
Joseph Bobko (Write-in) |
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| District 26 |
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Meredith Ryan (Unity Party) Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 28 |
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| District 29 |
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Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 31 |
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David Aitken (Libertarian Party) |
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| District 33 |
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Primary
Colorado State Senate primary 2024 |
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| Office | Other | ||
| District 2 |
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| District 5 |
Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 6 |
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| District 10 |
The Democratic primary was canceled. |
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| District 12 |
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| District 13 |
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| District 14 |
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| District 16 |
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| District 17 |
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| District 18 |
The Republican primary was canceled. |
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| District 19 |
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| District 21 |
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| District 23 |
The Democratic primary was canceled. |
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| District 26 |
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| District 28 |
Did not make the ballot: |
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| District 29 |
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Robert Tate (disqualified appeared on ballot) |
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| District 31 |
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The Republican primary was canceled. |
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| District 33 |
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Voting information
- See also: Voting in Colorado
General election race ratings
The table below displays race ratings for each race in this chamber from CNalysis.
Campaign finance
- See also: Campaign finance
The section and tables below contain data from financial reports submitted to state agencies. Districts and elections are grouped in sections of 10. To view data for a district, click on the appropriate bar below to expand it. The data is gathered and made available by Transparency USA.
Incumbents who were not re-elected
Incumbents defeated in general elections
No incumbents lost in general elections. This was less than the average of 1.3 incumbent defeats per cycle from 2010 to 2022.
Incumbents defeated in primaries
No incumbents lost in primaries. This was the same as in all years except 2012, when one incumbent lost. Ballotpedia began gathering data on incumbents defeated in 2010.
Retiring incumbents
Eight incumbents did not file for re-election in 2024.[5] The average number of retirements per cycle from 2010 to 2022 was 7.6. Those incumbents were:
Primary election competitiveness
This section contains data on state legislative primary election competitiveness in Colorado. These totals include data from all regularly-scheduled House and Senate elections. For more information about Ballotpedia's competitiveness analysis of state legislative elections, please click here.
Post-filing deadline analysis
The following analysis covers all state legislative districts up for election in Colorado in 2024. Information below was calculated on May 8, 2024, and may differ from information shown in the table above due to candidate replacements and withdrawals after that time.
There were 83 legislative seats up for election this year in Colorado's legislature—18 in the Senate and 65 in the House. There were 25 total contested primaries in 2024 (11 Democratic and 14 Republican) out of a possible 166. This rate of 15.1% was the highest since Ballotpedia began tracking this figure in 2010.
See also
| Colorado | State Legislative Elections | News and Analysis |
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2025 • 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 2025 • 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Colorado Sun, "The Colorado legislative races where the most state-level super PAC cash is being spent," October 23, 2024
- ↑ The Colorado Sun, "Democratic supermajority or more “balance”: What’s at stake in Colorado’s state legislative elections," October 23, 2024
- ↑ Colorado Democrats chase 'supermajority' in the Senate," November 2, 2024
- ↑ CNalysis, "25 CO Forecast," accessed November 1, 2024
- ↑ Ballotpedia defines an incumbent as retiring if the incumbent did not file for office or filed for office but withdrew, was disqualified, or otherwise left a race in a manner other than losing the primary, primary runoff, or convention. If an incumbent runs as a write-in candidate, Ballotpedia does not consider them to be retiring. If an incumbent runs in the same chamber for a different seat, Ballotpedia does not consider them to be retiring.
- ↑ Ballotpedia defines a seat as open if the incumbent did not file to run for re-election or filed but withdrew and did not appear on any ballot for his or her seat. If the incumbent withdrew from or did not participate in the primary but later chose to seek re-election to his or her seat as a third party or independent candidate, the seat would not be counted as open. If the incumbent retired or ran for a different seat in the same chamber, his or her original seat would be counted as open unless another incumbent from the same chamber filed to run for that seat, in which case it would not be counted as open due to the presence of an incumbent.
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State Website, "State Candidates," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Audio Recording Instructions," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Unaffiliated Candidate Petition," March 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 501," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Colorado Secretary of State, "Major Party Assembly Designation," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 601," accessed February 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Major Political Parties FAQs," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedcostatute602 - ↑ Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 602," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 604," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 801," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 802," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 1304," accessed March 5, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Election Rules, "Rule 3: Rules Concerning Qualified Political Organizations," accessed March 6, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Minor Parties and Qualified Political Organizations FAQs," accessed March 6, 2025
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedcocall - ↑ Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 1102," accessed March 6, 2025
- ↑ Colorado Revised Statutes, "Title 1, Article 4, Section 1101," accessed March 6, 2025
- ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "2024 Legislator Compensation," August 21, 2024
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Colorado Constitution - Article 5, Section 7," accessed February 9, 2021
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Colorado Constitution - Article 4, Section 1," accessed February 9, 2021
- ↑ Colorado Secretary of State, "Colorado Constitution - Article 4, Section 3," accessed February 9, 2021
- ↑ Colorado LegiSource, "Surprise! The 2019 Legislative Session Convening a Week Earlier," September 20, 2018
