I'm here with Kyle Clark to breakdown
a night that, without using with,
with using family-friendly language,
can only be described in a whoa kind
of evening for the Democrats, right?
I mean, it was in it was an utter
excrement fest for Colorado Republicans.
Tonight's results,
the overwhelming democratic victories,
were not what Democrats predicted,
and they were not what Republicans predicted.
I don't think that they were even
within the realm of possibility.
For Republicans,
and they might have been Democrats,
wildest dreams.
Although when I straight up asked
Democratic State Senator Dominic Moreno
if he could have imagined tonight's
results in his wildest dreams, he said no.
I truly think that what we saw was.
There was polling indicating that
things were moving in Democrats
direction in a significant way,
especially in the governors
and the Senate race.
I think a lot of us in the media and
maybe some folks who follow politics
out and around town have become kind
of conditioned after the polling
misses around Trump to not put a
lot of stock in polls or to think
that polls are going to skew left.
And in the end, Colorado Democratic
voters outperformed the polling,
oftentimes significantly.
And I think that's a
testament to the polling.
The pollsters don't want to be wrong.
They want to be right.
They want to learn lessons.
They want to do it better.
We also know that polls
are a snapshot in time.
And I think there was a prevailing wisdom,
at least nationally,
that things were turning Republicans
away in the closing message.
Sure.
As you know what that didn't happen
in Colorado because of anything.
Things moved left from the polls.
This is this is a reckoning type
moment that I think the Colorado
Republican Party has not had in
the past even though it's been
eight years since they won a major
race and they've suffered a lot
of defeats because this was the
time that they went in and they
said tonight's our night baby,
this is it,
we can do it and they got their butts
handed tool up and down the line and.
If that doesn't prompt a reckoning about
what the party wants to be in the future,
I don't know what will.
They've got a couple of paths,
and it's up to Colorado Republicans.
I mean, we're both unaffiliated voters.
That's not our business.
It's up to Colorado Republicans,
what they want the party to be.
And one path is,
you know, obsolescence,
like California Republicans or
in a lot of ways,
New York Republicans.
I grew up in a very Republican
part of upstate New York, you know,
where it was two to one Republican
and Republicans lost continually.
Statewide races in New York.
I mean,
I think it is,
but. But even Lee Zeldin came much closer
in New York State. Much closer than a
little hope this year, but.
Do you want to be a party that
every 30 years has a little hope?
Or do you want to be a party that competes?
You know, and I think that's really
where Colorado Republicans have got
to figure out where they want to go.
But bear in mind that what we heard
from the Republicans this year
is we fended off the extremists.
We got the moderates on the ballot,
and I think they did for the most part.
I think Heidi could all veered far
right toward the end of her campaign.
But for the most part, they had reasonable,
moderate Republican candidates on the ballot,
and Colorado voters looked at the moderate.
Republicans on the ballot and said.
No, thank you, Sir.
Not interested.
And why do you think?
I mean, I know there's a
thorough reasons behind that,
but any one or two main reasons that
you thought that those Republican
candidates were so soundly rejected?
I mean, they were soundly rejected
almost regardless of ideology.
I mean, general right now is down
1819 points, but you have oday
down 13 points or so right now,
and he ran away from Trump.
I mean, this was just a repudiation of
what Republicans stand for in Colorado,
even in a year when so many of the
key issues worked in their favor.
Inflation, crime, immigration concerns,
things like that.
I do think that one thing I'll
be very interested in seeing in
polling is how much of a motivating
factor abortion rights were,
because this is a state that for 60
years has prioritized reproductive
rights dating back to governor love,
a Republican.
Who passed a very liberal
abortion law in this state.
Abortion is not necessarily
been a big bone of contention
in Colorado for a long time.
We voted on reproductive rights
issues a number of times,
and the people who have led those
issues to restrict abortion have gotten
soundly beaten again and again and again.
This is a state where there's a
bipartisan consensus on abortion rights.
And I'm curious how much that
played in because when I look at it,
you look at the fact set and you're like,
what a potentially great year
for Republicans.
And for them to get,
you know, run out of the barn,
that indicates that there's just
a deep distrust between Colorado
voters and what the Colorado
Republican Party stands for.
Is it safe to, maybe not to oversimplify,
but is it safe to characterize Colorado
as a blue state at this point?
I think that that's really an
interesting conversation to have
because swing states swing.
Playing tonight, you know,
this was a year in which there
was expected to be a swing
and it swung the other way to
be a purple state or a
swing state. It doesn't
just mean you have both folks in
your state because every state does.
And I think folks who who maybe
haven't lived in a state like
that don't know that. Like
there are a ton of Republicans
in California. There's a ton of
Republicans in in in New York.
And and you know and in deep
red states there's a ton of,
you know, Democrats in Florida.
It's just there's more of
the other teams. So they lose
all the time. So people say well.
Those purple because look,
it's blue here, it's red there.
That's not what purple states mean.
And swing states,
purple states are states that
are routinely competitive.
And Colorado is not currently
routinely competitive.
And I think if you look at what
happened tonight and say with
things setting U so well for
Republicans and the result is
they get their lunch money taken.
That doesn't happen in a swing state,
in a purple state.
Now, does that mean that Democrats
are always going to exert the level
of control that they currently do?
Overtake politics?
No. Nothing's forever.
Everything comes and goes, everything
comes and goes.
But we've seen in other states
the way you can go from very
competitive to not at all competitive,
and how that can take a
generation to break out of
maybe 1. Possible point of hope for
the Republicans that Kelly Maher,
our Republican strategist,
brought up tonight that I
thought was quite interesting is,
as we record this on very
late on election night,
on Tuesday night, November the 8th,
Adam Frisch narrowly beating Lauren Bobert
in the third Congressional District.
Lauren Bobert I think pretty clearly
the face of the Colorado Republican
Party for the last couple years.
Does maybe replacing her in a less
extreme face of the Republican
Party give them a path forward?
I think that a lot of Republicans.
Well, I shouldn't say a lot of Republicans.
I think some Republicans,
more centrist Republicans,
are uncomfortable with the fact
that Lauren Boubert is the most
famous Colorado Republican,
and it's not even close.
And I don't know that they
would wish a loss upon her.
But I think the idea of replacing her
with a Republican who is interested
in legislating or governing,
as opposed to just being politically famous,
offers Republicans another path forward.
Lauren Bobert leaving office does
not exercise the Lauren Bobart
wing of the Republican Party.
They're still there.
They voted for Ron Hanks for Senate.
A lot of them voted for Greg
Lopez for governor.
A lot of them voted for Lori Saine in
Colorado Congressional District 8.
Those folks are still going to be
there and they're going to want
somebody bobert like to represent them.
But if Republicans at the end
of the night are able to say.
Barb Kirchmeyer is a Republican
congresswoman from Colorado
and Lauren Bobert is not.
That allows Republicans to
change the conversation.
Barbara Kirk Myers,
no, squish,
she's a she's a very conservative woman.
She has been for a long time.
This is somebody who just recently
came to the idea that there should
be any exceptions for abortion
even to save the life of the mother
should very conservative woman.
But she is not somebody who has made
her way by just flame throwing all the time.
So I think.
I think some Republicans would be
interested in somebody other than
Beaver being the face of the party,
but the only way that that
happens is if she loses
any quick final thoughts
before we get out of here.
I think it's going to take some time
to really figure out what happened
tonight and why it happened because so
we'll let folks in on a little thing.
So ahead of ahead of elections here,
we'll write up a little booklet
for all the folks in The Newsroom.
Some of them cover politics a lot,
like you and me,
and some of them not very much.
But one of the things that we lay out
is like here are the likely scenarios.
You know, just, you know,
thing number one could happen
or maybe thing #2 happens.
Less likely is thing #3 that happens.
The overwhelming democratic victories
that we saw tonight were not
among our anticipated scenarios.
I mean, I mean the the most democratic
friendly scenario that we had is
that there wasn't really a blue red
wave nationally and the Democrats
kind of roughly held their own in
Colorado in a tough year for them.
We did not envision a scenario in
which they blew out their Republican
opponents left, right and center.
So I think if we were not prepared
for tonight,
and I don't know how many people in Colorado.
Politics were prepared for tonight.
That suggests that maybe the quickest
take is not the greatest take.
And maybe we should step back,
gather some more information,
talk to some more people and
figure out what really happened.
Because at the end of the day,
it's not up for us to determine
what happened.
Voters made this choice,
and voters sent one hell of a
message tonight about how they
want to see Colorado LED.
And we'll continue to get some of
that data as it comes in and some
of those takes as they come in.
But, Kyle, thanks so much
for your time here tonight.
Yeah, thank you for inviting
me back into the Bianca drone,
whatever this is. Yeah.
Thanks again for joining us.