Buttigieg, Colorado Democrats rally in Boulder ahead of pivotal midterm elections

After an unprecedented eight years in full control of state government, Colorado Democrats are confident they’re days away from not just keeping their grip on power, but turning the state a deeper shade of blue than ever.

On stage at the Boulder Theater Wednesday night, the state’s top Democratic leaders rallied the party faithful in a series of speeches that doubled as a line of succession for the state’s highest offices: Outgoing Attorney General Phil Weiser was introduced by the candidate hoping to succeed him as attorney general, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who was in turn introduced by Jefferson County Clerk Amanda Gonzalez, the candidate hoping to succeed Griswold as the state’s top elections official.

All three, along with Democratic treasurer candidate Jeff Bridges, are favored to win their races on Election Day, Nov. 3. Democrats in the state Legislature, meanwhile, are eyeing a two-thirds supermajority in both houses. And Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib said a once-unthinkable 8-0 split of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives is in the party’s grasp.

“Every single Republican-held congressional district (in Colorado) is on the priority list to flip,” Murib said to cheers at the rally. “We are the only state in the country that gets to say that, and it’s because of what you all have done. That means we can win the majority in the House right here in Colorado.”

“We have the opportunity to put this country on a better path forward — to not only do that, but to hold Donald Trump accountable, and then go on to win the White House in 2028,” Murib added.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, widely considered a likely contender for Democrats’ 2028 presidential nomination, headlined the rally, hosted by Rep. Joe Neguse, whose 2nd Congressional District includes Boulder.

“We can have better leadership in this country,” Buttigieg said. “We can have nice things in the United States of America, and Colorado has some great candidates showing us what that leadership looks like.”

Neguse and Buttigieg made stops earlier in the day in Thornton, where former state legislator Manny Rutinel is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in one of the country’s top House battlegrounds, and in Douglas County, where Democrat Eileen Laubacher hopes to pull off an upset over Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s most heavily Republican district.

Nationally, pollsters and election forecasters rate the Democrats as strong favorites to win back control of the House — and a surprising number of competitive races in traditionally deep-red states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas have put the Senate in play, too, as voters turn sharply against the Trump administration over cost of living concerns, the war in Iran and other issues.

“You deserve better than the likes of Gabe Evans and Lauren Boebert and (5th District Rep.) Jeff Crank, and whoever this guy is they found to run against Phil Weiser,” Buttigieg told the crowd, referring to Republican governor candidate Victor Marx. “You deserve better, and you’re going to get better.”

Boulder residents Nancy Portnoy and Joel Silverman left Wednesday’s rally feeling energized.

“I’m just hoping every single person up there wins, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that happens,” said Portnoy, who is phone-banking for Rutinel in the home stretch of the campaign. “I show up at all the meetings. My wish is to get more people off their butt.”

“What (Trump) is doing to this country, and how he and his friends — people who can get money off of him — what they are doing to enrich themselves at the expense of this country, it’s a crime,” Silverman said.

No ‘back to normal’

Colorado Democrats haven’t lost a statewide election since President Donald Trump first won the presidency in 2016, and they’ve had total control of state executive offices and the Legislature since the 2018 midterms — the longest sustained period of one-party rule in state history. In recent elections they’ve made inroads in traditionally conservative areas like Douglas County and Colorado Springs, where Crank faces a tough challenge from Democrat Jessica Killin in a race that the national party has prioritized.

In an interview, Buttigieg said the balance that Colorado Democrats have struck between “civic equality, economic opportunity and personal liberty” is a model that the party can follow nationally to bring independents and former Republicans into the fold.

“The message I’m going to have in Boulder is not that different from the message I’m sharing in Mississippi,” Buttigieg said. “You can see how people from very different communities can respond to the same message, because people are up against the same problems. Especially when it comes to the cost of living.”

Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, placed fifth in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary before serving as Transportation Secretary during the Biden administration. In the aftermath of Trump’s first term, Democrats made a mistake, he said, in trying to go “back to normal.”

“It’s very important for Democrats to make clear that our project is not to restore some old status quo,” said Buttigieg. “It’s to move us into a different future that is better than the cruelty and the chaos of the Trump years — and also better than what we were dealing with before, which helped lead to the Trump years.”

Neguse, first elected in 2018 and now the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, said that Democrats had pursued policies at the national level that were “unmoored from the daily concerns of most Americans,” while failing to pass anti-corruption measures, like a ban on congressional stock trading, that have a high degree of popular support.

“Passing an agenda that is very focused on tackling entrenched corruption, and then being able to advance some policies that make life easier for most Americans — that’s our our task,” Neguse said.

In the view of many loyal Democrats hoping to see their party take back Congress next week, aggressive oversight of the Trump administration should be firmly atop that anti-corruption agenda.

“I know they’ve said the first 100 hours is about affordability and gas prices and all that,” Silverman said. “But then they’ve got to start bringing in (Defense Secretary) Pete Hegseth. They’ve got to start bringing in all the all the people below Trump — to face Congress, and answer questions, and be held accountable.”