Hickenlooper debates Trump, healthcare with GOP challenger Baisley

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper used a debate Wednesday night to ask Colorado voters to send him back to Washington to push back against President Donald Trump and start “rebuilding our economy,” and reject a Republican challenger he said would be a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s agenda.

A fixture in Colorado politics for more than two decades, Hickenlooper faces a challenge from Republican state Sen. Mark Baisley as he seeks a second six-year Senate term, which he has said will be his last.

“We have a clear choice here — Mr. Baisley … supports every action of President Trump,” Hickenlooper said during a debate with Baisley hosted by 9News at Metropolitan State University Denver. “We need change in Washington. A vote for Mr. Baisley would be two years more of the same.”

Hickenlooper blasted Republicans’ 2025 package of tax and spending cuts, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by Trump, as the “One Big Bad Betrayal Act,” accusing the president of “dismantling” the country’s healthcare system and driving up the cost of living through tariffs and the war in Iran.

Baisley, a hardline conservative voice in the state Legislature since 2019, said his opponent had “TDS” — an acronym for “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — and blamed the affordability crisis on years of misrule by Hickenlooper and other Colorado Democrats.

“If I’m anybody’s sycophant, it’s Thomas Jefferson’s,” Baisley said. “Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Let’s have a wise and frugal government.’ So we need to re-secure the promise of America for Colorado, and establish that balance back.”

Baisley, however, made little effort to distance himself from Trump during Wednesday’s debate, the second of two face-to-face meetings between the candidates. Trump remains deeply unpopular in the Centennial State, where voters haven’t elected a Republican to statewide office in the decade since his victory in the 2016 presidential election. Former Sen. Cory Gardner, who served one term before Hickenlooper unseated him in 2020, was Colorado’s last Republican senator.

Baisley reaffirmed his opposition to abortion rights, an issue that he called the “slavery decision of our generation,” and said he would vote for a national abortion ban. He faced questions from moderators about a bill he sponsored in 2020 to ban same-sex marriage, his speech alongside Mike Lindell and other extremist election deniers at a 2022 Capitol rally, and his belief that public schools should be abolished.

“I think it was a mistake that we made from the very beginning that the government at any level … runs the schools,” he said. “I guess I might entertain the idea of there being standards that are set by the state Legislature. But I’m scratching my head if even that’s a good idea.”

Healthcare issues

Baisley also defended Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and other changes to the safety-net program, which will cause an estimated 377,000 Coloradans to lose their coverage through new eligibility requirements, and said that he supports a much smaller role for government in the healthcare system.

“I’d like to see government step away, stop being involved so much, except for in the obvious things like doctor licensing and that sort of thing,” he said.

Hickenlooper didn’t answer directly when asked if he would support a single-payer, “Medicare for All” healthcare system keep the system centered on private insurance. He said he supports “universal coverage,” and touted bipartisan healthcare price transparency legislation that he has championed in the Senate.

A former aerospace engineer, Baisley ran unopposed in the GOP primary after his nomination by a party assembly in April. He has represented Senate District 4 — which includes six rural counties west of Colorado Springs as well as parts of Jefferson and Douglas counties — since 2023, and previously served two terms in the state House of Representatives.

Democrats’ ‘big tent’

Hickenlooper, a former Denver mayor and Colorado governor, defeated a progressive challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, in a closer-than-expected June primary. His win by fewer than six percentage points followed a campaign largely defined by his absence from the campaign trail, as he repeatedly declined to participate in debates with Gonzales, extended interviews or voter questionnaires.

He said during Wednesday’s debate that the primary result showed “a lot of unhappiness and frustration” among Democratic and unaffiliated voters, and that Democrats are a “big tent” party that is united on key values and goals.

“Julie Gonzales and I agree to a large extent on where we want to get to … We may have different tactics, but we want change,” Hickenlooper said. “There are a lot of different people in this party, but we are united to make sure that we can go and regain control of the House, regain control of the Senate, and bring a new era of sanity into Washington.”

After facing criticism from Democrats throughout much of the last two years for his votes in favor of many of Trump’s Cabinet nominees in early 2025 — a pattern he defended at the time as helping to “reduce the damage” for Colorado — Hickenlooper struck a markedly different tone on Wednesday.

“I regret the confirmation of every one of those cabinet members. Every single one,” he said. “I think they’ve made the damage that Trump has done far worse.”

Hickenlooper also brushed aside a question from Baisley about the Democratic Socialists of America’s influence within the Democratic Party.

“The bottom line is,” Hickenlooper said, “I’ve always supported and been supported by people that, while I agreed with a lot of the basic tenets, there were big parts that I disagreed with.”