It may be one of the most interesting political races in state history, certainly recent state history. On one side, you have a man, a Democrat, who casts one of the longest shadows in our nearly 150 years of statehood. On the other—a fellow Democrat—who has made her bones as a community organizer and leader in the state legislature. Also, a Latina. An Ivy League Latina.
John Hickenlooper has a resume that reads like ‘Jack Armstrong, All American Boy.’ Except it’s true. Hickenlooper is a long ago laid off geologist who transitioned to saloon keeper, perhaps even the country’s first ever microbeer saloon keeper. But after years of selling ‘barley soup,’ in 2003 he transitioned to politics, winning the first of his two terms as Denver Mayor before serving two terms as Colorado Governor and finally to his current job in the U.S. Senate, a seat he’s held since 2021.
Julie Gonzales is a 43-year-old state senator with a long history of community organizing. After graduating from Yale in 2005, the Texas native settled in Colorado where she emersed herself in a number of social causes, including working for teacher, worker and immigrant rights.
Her political baptism began as a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, later working with the state Democratic Party and party leadership before working with the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. She entered elective politics in 2018, winning her senate race. She won reelection in 2022 and has served as Senate Whip.
The current battle, which will be decided when Democrats hold their primary election on June 30th pits the old guard against the bold and brash, up-and-comer. He, a 74-year-old White guy versus she, a Latina millennial.
As each candidate travels the state, they’re finding out that Colorado, a blue state, has perhaps turned an even deeper shade of blue. Credit Donald Trump.
“We’re in one of the greatest struggles in our nation’s history,” said Hickenlooper. From Washington, where he serves on a number of committees, including Energy and Natural Resources and Commerce and the Science and Transportation, the former city and state CEO has a bird’s eye view of a man who leads what he calls “the most corrupt administration ever.”
The President, he said, has prioritized an undeclared war, brutal immigration policies and “lavish tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy,” while neglecting real issues at home, including families, their healthcare and quality of life for both the poor and the middle class. Real necessities, including healthcare, have been afterthoughts.
For these reasons and more, Hickenlooper explains why he’s chosen to run again and not quietly retire and leave the battle. “I’ve never felt like my fight to help Coloradans has been more important.”
Trump’s undeclared war, now passing the two-month mark, has frayed an already weakened safety net for thousands of Coloradans, said Gonzales. “People are working harder than ever to make ends meet,” she said. And that, she said, is not a campaign trope. Prices for food, gasoline, rent and health care are soaring. Inflation is a reality and not a talking point.
Legislative work has limited Gonzales’ travel, yet she has still managed to visit about a fourth of the state’s 64 counties. As she travels, she hears a consistent lament.
In Alamosa, the hub of the San Luis Valley, doctors are pondering “impossible choices,” said Gonzales. Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ they say, has left them “with fewer dollars while trying to figure out which clinics they will have to close.” Just keeping the lights on, she said, is a painful choice they’re having to make.
In other small pockets of the state where hopes and incomes are pointing in the wrong direction, parents are worried about their children not having access to the school-provided meals once summer vacation begins.
Farmers and ranchers have also told her the economics of 2026 have forced them to hold off on purchasing new equipment and even fertilizer buys. Concern and frustration have settled over this community as it tries to figure out how, under Trump, things are going to turn out.
Leaving the Senate to return home as he regularly does, Hickenlooper also hears similar frustration, anger and, too often, real despair wherever he goes.
“Folks are reeling from Trump’s cost-of-living crisis and his administration’s lawlessness,” he said. Healthcare costs are fraying already torn and tattered budgets. At one stop in Conifer, Hickenlooper spoke with a father telling him how his family’s health care was now “almost as high as his mortgage” as Obamacare subsidies have disappeared.
The promises Trump made as he campaigned for a second term, lower costs, no more wars, better healthcare, an economy, as he likes to say, ‘the likes of which has never been seen before’ were, it appears, just words, certainly for the men and women showing up to hear these two Democrats.
The promises, said Gonzales, were ‘Trumpspeak,’ all bluster. But not for the rich. They, she said, have gotten richer as societal cracks once negotiable have grown across the state for everyone else.
Gonzales says It’s time for new “politics and policies.” The only way to ensure change, she believes, is for a new generation of leaders to step forward with new ideas and new solutions.
But Hickenlooper is still a force, and one with huge name recognition across Colorado. He’s also witness to the regular and often unpredictable Trump chaos and self-aggrandizement.
It’s “corruption and cruelty,” he says. Trump’s tariffs are trickle down taxes, his wars unexplained and unnecessary, his immigration policies and lust for power, believes Hickenlooper, translate to pain for Americans and the world.
The forgotten, the left behind and the ‘disappeared,’—undocumented and American citizens scooped up by ICE—said Hickenlooper, have been erased from Trump’s plans. “Instead, he re-rigged it (the system) for himself, and his Epstein Class buddies.” His tax cuts are windfalls for the rich, little else for the rest.
Gonzales concedes that her crusade to unseat perhaps Colorado’s best known politician is daunting. But heavy lifting and hitting her marks have been part of a makeup forged from her earliest years.
She said visiting all 64 Colorado counties will give her a chance to introduce herself to the state and all its people. It will also give them a chance to know her, hear her, a woman who cares about farmers and ranchers, immigrant workers and their families, the men and women who make Colorado work.
Will Colorado voters select experience over new ideas? Is it time for a changing of the guard? Both candidates present a clear path to solutions for Colorado, but voters have the final say.
