Advocates from across the political spectrum officially launched a campaign this week to radically change how Fort Collins elects city officials.

Joined by multiple Colorado legislators and city council members, Fort Collins Ranked Voting hosted their campaign kickoff event at Avogado’s Number in Fort Collins after garnering enough signatures to put the alternative voting method on the city’s April ballot.

If approved, Fort Collins would replace the traditional plurality voting system with a method that ensures winners receive majority support. For the 2013 municipal elections the mayoral and city council races would use ranked choice voting, also called instant runoff voting, that allows voters to rank candidates on the ballot according to their personal preference.

Rep. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, an advisor to the group, said the system is simple. Kefalas explained that if any candidate receives the majority of first place votes, they win. If no candidate receives a majority, the votes for the last place candidate are redistributed among the remaining candidates according to each voter’s preference. The process repeats until one candidate holds a simple majority.

“It’s just like choosing your favorite ice cream,” Kefalas said.

During his speech Kefalas asked a four-year-old girl in the front row to name her first, second and third favorite ice cream flavor. The young girl quickly answered strawberry, blueberry and lemon.

“If a four-year-old can do it, than I don’t think it’s so complicated,” Kefalas pronounced over resounding applause.

Seth Anthony, a member of Fort Collins Ranked voting since 2008, said the toughest hurdle in passing the measure is for voters to understand the system’s simplicity. Anthony said while collecting petition signatures he turned many skeptics into supporters by merely explaining how ranked voting worked.

“Once people understand the process they are usually 100 percent on board,” Anthony said.

Rep. Randy Fischer, D-Fort Collins, said RCV is very logical. He said it would open up the whole political process to a much broader dialogue because voters could vote with their heart first and then for a more electable candidate second.

“I can foresee a time when we look back on today and say, ‘wow what was the big controversy all about?’” Fischer said. “It makes sense to ensure we have a majority rule in our elections. I can even foresee a time when we can do away with primaries. If we have ranked choice voting, why do we need a primary?”

Kefalas said RCV eliminates the “spoiler effect.” Currently third party candidates can spilt the vote and help elect the candidate ideologically opposite from himself or herself. Kefalas also said campaign dollars make less of an impact during RCV races because voters are more likely to take a chance on a candidate they believe is right for the job, rather than simply vote for the candidate with the most television spots.

It looks as if the controversy has only begun. Letters to the editor have appeared in The Coloradoan both for and against the measure.

Former Larimer County Commissioner and former Fort Collins City Council member John Clarke outlined his opposition to RCV in a Jan. 28 Coloradoan column. Clarke wrote that the process is too complicated and would discourage voter turnout. He is also concerned about relying on computers to tally voter preferences.

“I never liked the idea of trusting my vote to cyber software,” wrote Clarke.

Anthony said many companies are already offering machines that can tabulate RCV results. Fort Collins rents voting machines, so he said the city would only need to choose a different company capable of handling RCV elections. Anthony said the transition will run smoothly because Fort Collins uses an all mail-in ballot system where ballots are counted in a central location. The city would only have to change one counting machine as opposed to machines in numerous precincts.

Fort Collins City Clerk Wanda Krajicek said her office has not studied how RCV would affect the city and is awaiting the results before officially looking into how RCV would work.

“If the voters want it we will do everything in our power to make it happen,” Krajicek said.

Kefalas is a long time supporter of alternative voting methods. In 2007 he sponsored legislation that set up the voter choice task force to study various voting options. The following year he sponsored a bill that granted local jurisdictions greater flexibility in their election process, which allows municipalities like Fort Collins to make the switch to RCV.

The voter choice task force demonstrated that RCV could be instituted for many statewide races. According to Kefalas, Colorado’s constitution limits any change to some statewide elections like the governor’s race, but he said nothing stands in the way of state senatorial, state house or even congressional races from transitioning to RCV. Kefalas hopes Fort Collins will act as a proving ground for alternative methods.

“My goal is that if we can show success at the local level then maybe people would be willing to make the switch on other levels as well,” Kefalas said. “It’s getting crazy in Denver lately. Everyone is worried about who is on top and who is ahead. This system allows for a greater flow of ideas and forces the two major parties to concentrate on issues rather than partisan bickering.”

Colorado Democratic chair Pat Waak said changing any statewide race to an alternative method would be a very difficult proposition. The Democratic Party has not taken an official stance on the issue, but in general Waak said she has some problems with ranked choice elections.

If approved, Fort Collins would join Aspen, Basalt and Telluride in enacting RCV. Basalt adopted the alternative method in 2002 for mayoral races with at least three candidates, but such a situation has yet to arise. Telluride passed an ordinance in 2008 instituting RCV for the town’s next three mayoral races starting in 2011.

Aspen is the only Colorado municipality to have actually conducted an election using RCV. In September 2007, the Aspen City Council adopted an ordinance requiring instant runoff voting for Mayor and Council members as well as a requirement that council members be elected by majority vote. In November of that same year Aspen voters approved a charter amendment, which paved the way for the city’s May 5, 2009 regular municipal election conducted using IRV. In November 2010, Aspen voters subsequently repealed the amendment and returned to traditional methods after only using IRV one time.

This week, as a requirement of Kefalas’ bill granting local jurisdictions greater flexibility in their election process, the Secretary of State published a study addressing the many questions surrounding alternative voting methods. The report includes progress updates from counties and municipalities across Colorado who instituted RCV as well as feedback from stakeholders and details on how they transitioned to alternative methods. The report queried interested parties to gain insight into Aspen’s 2009 election and posted the comments on the SOS Web site. The report does not suggest employing RCV elections in Colorado.

“Considering the written comments received and the immediate repeal of instant runoff voting in Aspen, implementing ranked voting methods may not be a viable option for Colorado elections,” the report stated.

The report does state that the City of Aspen has verbally expressed that their 2009 election felt like a success. It states that conflicting viewpoints make assessing Aspen’s election difficult. It said the city employed a tabulation methodology that has never been used in the U.S. before. The city employed what was dubbed the True method, named after its creator Jim True of the Aspen City Attorney’s office.

The reports cites Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote, the leading non-profit and non partisan advocacy group for alternative voting methods, as saying True’s method is defensible, but that Richie would have suggested a different way of counting votes for multi-seat elections. The report also states that depending on selection of any specific tabulation algorithm, the same set of ballots could have resulted in multiple differing winners.

Co-Chair of Fort Collins Ranked Voting Eric Fried said he was disappointed but not surprised by the SOS report.

“It is indicative of an institutional bias against change,” Fried said. “They make passing reference to Rob Richie’s comments, but every other comment they reference is negative and gave no recognition to any problems with our current electoral system.”

In response to claims that different ways of counting votes leads to different results, Fried agreed. He said RCV is supposed to give a different result than traditional methods, but Fried said he believes that RCV produces the fairest result. Fried also said he understands why Aspen used its own tabulation method, but said their method may have been too complicated.

“Here in Fort Collins we do not plan on re-inventing the wheel,” Fried said. “We will use a much simpler RCV formula and will not implement a multi-seat election.”

A decade ago no city in the country used RCV, but 16 municipalities and counties have adopted the alternative method in California, North Carolina, Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington. Including Aspen, two cities and a county have since returned to traditional methods — Burlington, VT., and Pierce County, WA.

Also in attendance at Sunday’s event was Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, and Fort Collins City Council member Ben Manvel, District 1.

As the Martin Luther King holiday unfolds in Denver, it is important to remember that it is more than a day off, more that an extra ski day.

Today, we bring you first a statement by Colorado Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak. Then, we have video of the entire Martin Luther King “I have a dream” speech, that is followed by a much shorter video of an excerpt from the speech, in case you don’t have time for the whole thing.

Down below, we also have links to the entire text of the speech and to a calendar of Denver events marking the day.

From Pat Waak:

“Tomorrow is a day for both the celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the tireless movement for equality and understanding that he helped foster. Through non-violent action, peaceful assembly and soaring rhetoric, Dr. King helped show all Americans a better way forward and reminded our nation that all are created equal.

“While we remain imperfect, we have come a long way since Dr. King’s speech nearly a half century ago. While on this day we certainly reflect on our progress, we also look forward to bettering ourselves and our nation and to upholding the values Dr. King spoke of when he addressed a nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As Dr. King said that day, ours must be a nation where our children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” And on this day we observe his vision by engaging in service to those in our communities that need assistance. And I believe that in doing so, we honor the life and continue the legacy of Dr. King.”

Click here to see text of the entire speech.

Here, link to The Denver Post’s calendar of Martin Luther King Day events.

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Her announcment:

December 31, 2010

I want to tell you how grateful and humbled I am to have had the opportunity to serve you as the Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party. I decided to run for Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party in 2005 because I believed we could rebuild the party from the grassroots up and involve every county in the process of winning elections in Colorado.

Over the past six years we gained and maintained the Governor’s office; elected two U.S. Senators; elected a State Treasurer for four years; held Senate and House majorities for five years; held 5 out of 7 Congressional seats for 2 out of 5 years; elected key members to the CU Regents and State Board of Education and carried Colorado for President Barack Obama.

Achieving those goals and building a better Colorado for every family took a lot of work and the involvement of every single volunteer. My top priorities were:

• Committing the CDP to communicating with our local committees, grassroots activists, core supporters and the voting public. We instituted the Week In Review, visited every county, held routine conference calls, and instituted an outreach campaign through weekly opinion pieces in newspapers, participating in television, radio, newspaper, and magazine interviews, and joint discussions with the Colorado Republican Party. In every instance we maintained our honesty, civility and dignity, while presenting the truth to the Colorado voters.

• Building a new farm team of Democratic candidates around the state by working with local committees to recruit Democratic candidates in every jurisdiction and district possible in the state. We have a deep bench of really talented people who have stepped forward to be trained and coached through the election process. Some have won seats. Others didn’t make it. But they all made us proud.

• Improving upon our party’s organizational infrastructure to help Democrats across the state reach into their communities and get more voters to the polls in each election. The CDP Voter File is the best we have ever had. Ongoing training has made it useful to the party, to candidates and to local county organizations. Annual training for chairs and sharing of ideas has only enhanced our structure.

• Empowering people like you to take ownership of the party and help build a structure that represents every Coloradan and ensures the long-term success of our great party. It has been a great pleasure to work with each of the counties as they have built their capacity to identify leaders and carry out elections.

Colorado Democrats have always been the leading voice for good jobs, good schools and equal opportunity for every family. With the help of great leaders like Bill Ritter, John Hickenlooper, Barbara O’Brien, Joe Garcia, Mark Udall, Michael Bennet, Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, Ed Perlmutter, John Salazar, Betsy Markey, Cary Kennedy, Bernie Buescher, and Barack Obama we have made great gains on behalf of the people of Colorado. And we cannot forget the leaders in the State House and Senate over the past several years: Joan Fitz-Gerald, Peter Groff, and now Brandon Shaffer; Andrew Romanoff, Terrance Carroll and Sal Pace.

It is rare that a state party chair serves for two consecutive terms. In 2009, I responded to the urging of the party and its leaders by running and being elected to a third term. It turned out to be one of the most challenging.

I want to thank all of you who have urged me to run for an absolutely unprecedented fourth term as the Colorado Democratic Chair. It has been extremely gratifying. However, I am announcing today that I will not run for Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party in 2011.

It is a wonderful journey. Together we created the first strategic plan for the Colorado Democratic Party. We have accomplished most of the goals and objectives we set for ourselves. Together we crafted the first Faith and Politics project for Colorado. It helped us to focus our values in the political sphere. Together we hosted the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. It was indeed a highlight of my political life, and I know many of you feel the same. Together we elected some of the finest public servants the nation has ever seen: a new breed of Western political leaders.

We could not have done of this without the dedication and hard work of each of the CDP officers, DNC members, county chairs and CDP staff. In particular, my thanks to Dan Slater, Margaret Atencio, Carolyn Boller and Damon Barry who serve ably as officers.

Both Sherry Jackson and Jennie Peek-Dunstone were terrific CDP Executive Directors. We have had a number of Communication Directors, most recently Grace Lopez Ramirez, who was preceded by Brian Mason, Matt Farrauto, and Matt Sugar. Debbie Hill and Anne Wilson have been the latest of great finance teams that included Christine Pokrandt. Billy Compton and Maria Handley brought their valuable political skills and experience into the party during this period.

I especially want to pay tribute to Mike Weissman, who came to work with CDP in late 2005. He has been an invaluable team member. He has been joined this year by Chris Moore. And as for Jamie Elkins, part of the Common Cents Consulting team, we could not have worked our way out of some of the knottiest compliance and accounting issues without her.

You and I share countless memories of visits to every county and of the dedicated people who work on behalf of their communities. We will share more in the next two months as we prepare to reorganize the Colorado Democratic Party.

I look forward to working with you through January and February to make sure we select the strongest leadership from the precinct to the state level. While I believe that my public service lies in another direction after March 5, 2011, I am dedicated to continuing to move Colorado forward.

Sincerely,

Pat Waak, Chair, Colorado Democratic Party

For comments from Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams, see The Denver Post story here.

“The young people who would benefit from the passage of the DREAM Act are here through no fault of their own,” she said. “If this bill becomes law, they would have the opportunity to become a part of the country that they love by serving our country in the military or by pursuing a higher education.  That’s good for them, and good for the United States – which is why leaders on both sides of the political spectrum agree that this bill needs to become law.  To that end, I urge Members of Congress like Representative Coffman and Representative Lamborn to not let politics get in the way of good policy.  It is imperative the Congress act now so that we can continue to move our country forward.”

The DREAM Act’s prospects for passing this year suffered a blow today when conservative Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson said he would block any move to call a full Senate vote on the legislation. Nelson’s hard-line stand makes it extremely unlikely that majority Democrats can wrangle the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. An attempt in September to bring the bill to the floor failed 52 votes to 44 votes.

Nelson’s reasoning, as laid out in an essay at his website, raises more questions than it answers, like many of the current arguments against the DREAM Act. Nelson said he is “not going to support any legislation that I don’t think adds to jobs, or the military or the economy… Consequently, I won’t support any motion to proceed or any kind of cloture measure on the DREAM Act.”

Yet, as Lynda Waddington at the Iowa Independent reports today, Defense Department strategic planning documents (pdf) described the legislation as a “smart way” to strengthen the country’s “mission-ready, all-volunteer” force.

Waddington also notes that many experts agree that the U.S. economy and longterm U.S. unemployment figures would benefit from the law:

In addition, a national organization of more than 5,700 school, colleges, universities and other education organizations has argued that “the contributions that DREAM Act students would make over their lifetimes would dwarf the small additional investment in their education beyond high school, and the intangible benefits of legalizing and educating these students would be significant.” According to the College Board‘s 2009 study, “education — especially inculcating the supporting strong literacy skills, communication skills and the skills required for what MIT and Harvard economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane call ‘expert thinking’ — generates powerful waves of social good.”

Compelled by what they see as the inadequacy of explanations of DREAM opponents like Nelson, a group of undocumented students joined with labor unions and immigration reform advocates to announce a six-figure ad buy that will finance ads that argue Republicans are spreading lies about the legislation and are “running out of excuses to oppose” it.

The ads will run on Spanish and English media and will target Senators whose votes could be crucial to passing the DREAM Act. The list includes Florida Senator George LeMieux; Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe; Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown; Nevada Senator John Ensign; and Texas Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The New York Times today documented the late push supporters are mounting to get the Act passed, but notes that enough Republicans are entrenched on the issue to make passage unlikely.

Polls suggest the DREAM Act is popular with the public. For Latino voters, the DREAM Act is a major policy issue and a sort of candidate litmus test on the left and the right.

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According to the Durango Herald, Wadhams last week again decried the September ruling by a Denver district judge allowing minor-party vacancy committees to pick any candidate they choose as long as they’re a registered voter of the party.

The decision allowed the ACP to select Tancredo after the August primary in a last-minute bid to undercut Republican primary winner Dan Maes and take on eventual winner John Hickenlooper.

Wadhams and Republican attorney Richard Westfall, who sued to try to get Tancredo off the ballot, told the Herald they think third-party candidates should have to switch parties by Jan. 1 of the election year, with no exceptions for vacancy committees.

“We are already seeing the slow destruction of political parties through these stupid campaign-finance referendums,” Wadhams told the Herald, referring to restrictions on large donations to political parties. He added third parties can now pluck major party candidates who don’t want to face a primary.

“I happen to think that strong political parties are essential to a healthy political process,” Wadhams said. His counterpart, Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak, said she isn’t as concerned, pointing out Tancredo and three-term state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a defector from the Democratic Party who made a strong state House run as an independent, are both well-known to voters – unlike most third-party candidates.

“I think these are two very unusual circumstances,” Waak told the Herald. “I just don’t see this as something that sets a new standard.” But other observers argue it’s now easier to run as an unaffiliated candidate.

Curry managed to get the State Legislature to change the deadline for defecting from a major party and running as an independent candidate to Jan. 1 of election year, and she’s still legally challenging the fact that major party candidates can raise twice as much campaign cash because of primaries.

Jeanne Nicholson

Nicholson, a former county health nurse, says she doesn’t expect the SD16 race to be resolved for more than a week.

“What we know so far is that I am ahead with 537 more votes than my opponent, according to the clerk and recorder websites for all six of the counties [in the mountainous Front Range district]. What we don’t know is the full count for the provisional ballots and the mail-in ballots, military ballots, etc,” Nicholson said over the weekend.

The Boulder Daily Camera reported those numbers actually tightened over the weekend, but not enough to trigger an automatic recount. The paper reported a batch of uncounted Jefferson County ballots shrank Nicholson’s lead to just 452 votes, or 30,101 for Nicholson and 29,649 for Leonard.

“So we feel like we will not want to claim victory until we have that final result in out of respect for all of the people who voted in the election in Senate District 16, either for myself or my opponent and that we won’t know those final results and have an official announcement from the clerk and recorders’ offices and the Secretary of State until Nov. 19,” Nicholson told the Colorado Independent. “Of course, I’ll be delighted to represent all the citizens in the district if that is the wish of the voters.”

The results will not change the Democratic majority in the state Senate, where if Nicholson wins it will be a 20-15 edge. If Leonard somehow pulls it out, that margin will be a slightly tighter 19-16 majority.

In one key state House race, HD61, things are little more complicated, with write-in independent incumbent Kathleen Curry winning a court ruling Friday mandating that Colorado of Secretary of State Bernie Buescher must count ballots where voters wrote in Curry’s name but did not fill out a box or oval next to her name. Buescher had ruled those ballots would not count, and Curry sued. Now Buescher has until Wednesday to appeal.

Again, the balance of power is not expected to shift. After Tuesday, Republicans held a slim 33-32 majority in the House. A win by Curry over Democrat Roger Wilson would make that a 33-31-1 split in favor of the Republicans.

According to the website Real Aspen, Wilson was leading on Saturday with 9,496 votes to 9,001 for Curry, a difference of 495 votes. Real Aspen reported 29,390 ballots had been cast and only 27,389 had been counted.

“It is possible Curry may have received the greatest number of votes in the HD 61 race. Refusing to count these votes would thwart the clear intention of the electorate, as well as the intent of the election code,” Judge John W. Madden wrote in his decision on Friday.

“We hope the county clerks are allowed to do their job soon, and begin the count,” Curry told Real Aspen on Saturday. “The state could still delay this decision if they choose to fight against voter intent and appeal this ruling.”

Buescher originally ruled Curry, a three-term Democrat, switched to independent too late to have her name appear on the ballot, forcing her to run as a write-in. No write-in has ever won a state House seat, according to several sources, leaving Curry with a daunting uphill task. Her showing in Tuesday’s election has been surprising strong even give her name recognition.

Harvie Branscomb, Democratic chairman for House District 61, told the Denver Post on Sunday that all the ballots in the race should be recounted by hand, not just the 2,000 or so under votes for Curry that were thrown out because of Buescher’s ruling.

“I’m quite … opposed to partially recounting the contest,” Branscomb told the Post. “I really don’t think it’s fair for the court to say that the vote count can only go up for Kathleen Curry but it can’t go up for any other candidate.”

Colorado Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak told the paper she hasn’t yet decided whether to lobby Buescher to appeal the judge’s ruling.

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“We understand that thousands of Coloradans’ votes still have not been counted a day after the election. In Congressional District 3, Pueblo County votes are still being tabulated. We will work together with the Secretary of State’s office to ensure Colorado voters will be heard and that every vote is counted before victory is declared in CD3.”

President Barack Obama, in a post-mortem press conference this afternoon on Tuesday’s brutal midterm election that saw Democrats lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives and barely hold onto the Senate, praised so-called Blue Dog Democrats in largely Republican districts who took courageous votes for the administration agenda despite the possibility of being thrown out of office.

As of last night, it looked as if that’s exactly what happened to Salazar in CD3 and Betsy Markey in largely rural CD4. Markey, whom Obama just last week praised by name on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” for taking tough votes, definitely lost to Republican Cory Gardner Tuesday. Salazar, the brother of U.S. Interior Secretary and former Colorado senator Ken Salazar, appears headed for the same fate.

But while Markey voted for Obama’s climate change legislation, including cap and trade, Salazar – from an agrarian and energy rich district — did not. At his press conference today, Obama declared cap and trade all but dead. Asked if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should administratively regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Obama said the agency is under a court order compelling it to deal with the emissions in some way.

Saying the feds can’t ignore the science on climate change, he went on to explain that cap and trade was “just one way of skinning the cat,” suggesting the incoming Republican Congress will have to work hard with Democrats to look at other ways reduce heat-trapping emissions.

He was up 67 percent to 31 percent and it was surely the largest lead either Bennet or his opponent, Weld County DA Ken Buck, will enjoy all night.

Earlier in the night, Bennet stepped into the ballroom here and fielded questions from TV news reporters.

“People have said that, based on your ads, the impression is that people hate your opponent Ken Buck. What do you say to that?”

“Well, we’ve run overwhelmingly positive ads. Independent spending groups like the one run by Karl Rove have been running the attack ads for the Buck campaign,” Bennet said.

Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak just spoke to the crowd. She thanked all the canvassers in the crowd.

“Let’s have fun and hope the returns stay where they are right now.”

9News just flashed the latest numbers.

Bennet 53 percent; Buck 42 percent with 7 percent reporting.

Democrat John Hickenlooper leads the three-way gubernatorial contest.

Hickenlooper 57 percent; American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo 33 percent; Republican Dan Maes 7 percent.

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“Scott Tipton is ‘a real conservative, a conservative who can fight for you, and most importantly a conservative who can defeat [incumbent 3rd Congressional District Rep.] John Salazar,’” Tipton’s site quotes Morris .

Democrats point to the circumstances surrounding FOX News analyst Morris’ departure from the Clinton administration in 1996 as a sign of Morris’s questionable ethics. The Dems cited a New York Times article that referenced a story in the New York Post that reported Morris as having weekly meetings with a prostitute over the course of a year.

“While I served I sought to avoid the limelight because I did not want to become the message,” Morris said at the time of his resignation. ”Now, I resign so I will not become the issue. I will not subject my wife, family or friends to the sadistic vitriol of yellow journalism. I will not dignify such journalism with a reply or an answer. I never will.”

Democrats also pointed out that Morris had failed to pay $452,000 in taxes and penalties (though he reached an agreement and did pay those fees) and had previously claimed that Clinton told him that he would have to re-appoint then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno “because she would have turned on me over Waco.” Morris later retracted that statement and said it was his own conjecture.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak said in a release: “If Scott [Tipton] thinks Dick Morris’ endorsement is a great coup, he must be forgetting his history. Morris has proven himself morally questionable time and time again. As the first major fundraiser of his general election campaign, what kind of tone and precedent does this set for Scott personally? Scott should be condemning the actions of Dick Morris, not bowing down and taking his money. Does Scott think this is OK? It’s not. It’s embarrassing and disgraceful. Colorado deserves better than this.”

Tipton’s campaign said Waak should focus more on Salazar and less on Morris’ past.

“If Pat Waak spent more time worrying about John Salazar’s failure to produce jobs and his record of voting with [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi 97 percent of the time, she probably wouldn’t need to be so concerned about national political experts coming to the 3rd Congressional District to predict his defeat in November,” Tipton said.

Both the winner of Tuesday night’s Democratic primary election for U.S. Senate, Bennet, and challenger Romanoff will stand together with Democratic leaders as the party begins to orchestrate what it hopes will be a win for Democrats in the race against Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck in November.

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine will speak at the event, along with Sen. Mark Udall, Congressman Ed Perlmutter, Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, House Speaker Terrance Carroll, state Senate President Brandon Shaffer, Lt. Gov. candidate Joe Garcia, Colorado Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak and other notables.

Waak issued a release Tuesday night congratulating both Bennet and Romanoff on their campaigns and calling for unity moving forward.

“I would also like to congratulate Sen. Michael Bennet on his Senate primary win. Although the primary process is not always an easy one, we are confident that Michael Bennet will unite Democratic voters behind him. I’d also like to congratulate former Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who ran an aggressive campaign, and for all of his hard work. Now that the primary is behind us we will put all of our energy into electing Democrats from the top to the bottom of the ticket and ensuring a Democratic victory statewide in the general election,” Waak said.