Weiser Topples Bennet: Colorado's Democratic Primary Was a Night of Upsets

It was supposed to be a coronation. Instead, Colorado Democrats spent Tuesday night delivering the kind of primary results that reshuffle a whole election.

The headline: Phil Weiser beat Michael Bennet for the Democratic nomination for governor. Read that again. Bennet is a sitting United States senator, a national figure with the money and name recognition that usually make a primary a formality. He lost anyway, and not narrowly. With results still coming in Tuesday night, Weiser, the state's current attorney general, was carrying it by roughly ten points. It is the biggest upset of the night and the one that will define the governor's race straight through to November.

The rest of the statewide ballot broke more predictably, but not without stories. John Hickenlooper held off a spirited challenge from state senator Julie Gonzales to keep the Senate nomination. Jena Griswold, the current secretary of state, won a crowded four-way primary for attorney general, the job Weiser is vacating. And in the race to replace Griswold, Amanda Gonzalez rolled past state senator Jessie Danielson for the secretary of state nomination by a wide margin. If there is a theme, it is that the party's activist wing had a very good night.

Then there is the race nobody is calling yet. In Denver's First Congressional District, Diana DeGette, who has held that seat since 1997, is locked in a startlingly close primary with challenger Melat Kiros. As of Tuesday night Kiros held a narrow edge with plenty of ballots left to count. It is not a Douglas County race, and it is a long way from decided, but if that lead holds it is the kind of result that makes national headlines. We are watching it.

What it means for Douglas County. Every one of those statewide offices sits on the Douglas County ballot, so local Democrats just helped choose the names they will see in November: Weiser for governor, Hickenlooper for Senate, Griswold for attorney general, Gonzalez for secretary of state.

Here is the wrinkle worth sitting with, especially if you have wondered whether Douglas County is finally drifting purple. Of the two Democrats in the governor's race, Bennet was the moderate, the bipartisan dealmaker with the kind of profile that can pull crossover votes in the suburbs. Weiser is generally seen as the more progressive of the two. In a county like Douglas, that distinction matters. The moderate, unaffiliated, and soft-Republican voters who might have given Bennet a look in November are a harder sell for Weiser, and that is precisely the slice of the electorate that decides whether a place like this leans blue or stays red. Democrats nominating their more progressive option at the top of the ticket may, paradoxically, make Douglas County a little friendlier ground for the eventual Republican nominee.

And it cuts the same direction as the Republican side. As of Tuesday night, the GOP's more establishment governor candidate was narrowly ahead of her harder-right rival, another result that pulls toward the center rather than the fringe. Two primaries, both nudging the November math back toward the middle, and around here, back toward red.

None of that is a prediction. Douglas County is not the reliable Republican lock it once was, the fall is a long way off, and turnout, the national mood, and the candidates themselves all get a vote. But if you were watching Tuesday for a sign of which way the county tips in 2026, the top of the ticket did not exactly hand the Democrats a gift. You can follow every race, including the still-counting Republican primary, on our live results page, and we laid out the fall stakes in our what-to-watch guide.

A note on the numbers: results were still being counted Tuesday night and stay unofficial until certified. More on the Republican side as it settles.