{"id":2282,"date":"2026-07-05T04:04:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T04:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2282"},"modified":"2026-07-05T04:04:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T04:04:42","slug":"how-phil-weiser-connected-with-voters-to-defeat-michael-bennet-in-the-democratic-primary-for-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2282","title":{"rendered":"How Phil Weiser connected with voters to defeat Michael Bennet in the Democratic primary for governor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Stephanie Lang made up her mind to vote for Phil Weiser for governor, she wasn\u2019t moved by campaign events or the barrage of ads for or against him.<\/p>\n

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It was a phone call that secured her support \u2014 and not even one that Lang received herself. She\u2019d met someone at a May Day labor rally who had a transgender child. The otherwise stranger told Lang about calling the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office to express worry about the Trump administration\u2019s rollback of protections for children like hers.<\/p>\n

Weiser \u2014 the elected attorney general since 2019 \u2014 responded, Lang said, by calling that constituent personally to promise he would use his office to protect those rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an example of governing \u2014 it\u2019s not about political power, it\u2019s about being here to serve the people,\u201d said Lang, a 37-year-old Denverite. \u201cThat really spoke volumes to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voters like her helped propel Weiser, 58, to a stunning victory on Tuesday over U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet \u2014 a man who had previously won three statewide elections by ever-increasing margins, lined up a who\u2019s who of Democratic endorsements before his campaign even launched, benefited from $11.4 million in super PAC support backing his candidacy, and enjoyed, polls long showed, a massive edge in name recognition.<\/p>\n

But Bennet\u2019s advantages didn\u2019t always break through to voters \u2014 and there were also harder-to-gauge intangible factors that can vary from voter to voter, like which candidate comes across as more personable or more trustworthy.<\/p>\n

Lang said she read the news daily, particularly after Donald Trump\u2019s victory in the 2024 presidential election \u201ccatalyzed\u201d her. She knew Weiser had sued the Trump administration repeatedly; she couldn\u2019t place Bennet or what he had done.<\/p>\n

The surprise delivered by Tuesday night\u2019s primary result wasn\u2019t necessarily Weiser\u2019s victory itself. He had campaigned himself into striking distance in the final month of the race, while Bennet\u2019s support seemed calcified. Most political observers, by then, saw a world where either man could become the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n

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The surprise was the thoroughness of Weiser\u2019s victory \u2014 more than 13 percentage points as of Thursday evening, with most ballot-counting complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeiser ran an amazing campaign,\u201d Colorado State University political science professor Kyle Saunders said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t have the name recognition six months ago. He didn\u2019t have the backing. And this wasn\u2019t some squeaker you can explain away with turnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt, to my eye, that Weiser was helped by anti-incumbent sentiment. But this was a shellacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Discontent among the Democratic base\u2019<\/h4>\n

From the time Bennet announced he was running in April 2025, three months after Weiser entered the race, the senator was dogged by questions about why he\u2019d want to leave Washington, D.C. \u2014 and why he needed to give up one of the most powerful political positions in the country to make a difference for Colorado.<\/p>\n

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While not a true incumbent, Bennet nonetheless faced the drag of an anti-incumbent year as he sought another office.<\/p>\n

And now, instead of being able to move back to Colorado full time, Bennet will remain in Washington, with more than two years left in his Senate term \u2014 while Weiser faces the Republican nominee who emerges from a primary race that was, as of late Thursday, still too close to call. In increasingly blue Colorado, the Democrat will go into the fall general election campaign as a heavy favorite.<\/p>\n

A pair of polls by the bipartisan\u00a0Colorado Polling Institute, from September and April, pointed to that broader discontent with incumbents, especially among Democrats frustrated with the Trump administration \u2014 and with what their elected officials were doing to fight it.<\/p>\n

The April poll found Bennet\u2019s favorability among Coloradans had dropped from the prior year\u2019s poll results, from 45% to 40%. His unfavorable rating had risen, from 31% to 39%.<\/p>\n

\u201cCPI had been picking up on discontent among the Democratic base throughout the past year, and the primary became the release valve,\u201d said Kevin Ingham, a principal from the Democratic polling firm Aspect Strategic, which works with CPI. \u201cEvery race is different, but the data was all pointing towards a uniquely difficult environment for any longtime Democratic incumbent.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment was apparently most stark in Denver. Voters in the Democratic primary there ousted longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in favor of attorney Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist who\u2019s now the nominee. Denver was also where Weiser did best, winning almost two votes for each one cast for Bennet. And it\u2019s where Bennet\u2019s Senate counterpart, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper \u2014 who still won the Democratic nomination for reelection Tuesday \u2014 trailed his challenger, liberal state Sen. Julie Gonzales, by nearly 9 percentage points.<\/p>\n

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Map: Who\u2019s leading in the Colorado primary race for governor?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n