Chaotic Caucus Jump Starts Primary Initiatives – 9KUSA, Ryan Haarer

Republican Party leaders ignoring a very popular presidential contest and crowds of Democrats overwhelming many of Tuesday’s caucuses has led for calls to drop the system and shift back to a presidential primary.

In addition, some business groups want to add unaffiliated voters to the state primaries and any new national presidential primary.

9KUSA’s Ryan Haarer covered the twin efforts that are likely to find some early support and some pushback.

Parties prefer to control their nomination process. Colorado caucuses and primaries are mostly closed to non-party members. In addition, the caucus system leads to less participation than a primary and is much less expensive since any cost is borne by the parties and not the state.

But 2016 may be the year to put Colorado on the presidential primary map and open the system up to unaffiliated voters, which are the state’s largest bloc of voters, especially new voters.

Check out the story on 9News here

Single-Payer Divides Democratic Party – Colorado Public Radio, John Daley

A bipartisan campaign group with powerful business allies is opposing the single-payer health care initiative already placed on Colorado’s November ballot.

Similar to the fracking initiatives of 2014 sponsored by environmentalists and wealthy activists, most of the Colorado Democratic establishment and the business community are fighting single-payer. Democrats up for election in 2014, such as Mark Udall and John Hickenlooper, feared it would divide the party and cause a high-profile argument in the media among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters during the fall campaigns.

The single-payer initiative has the same potential with the added detriment of highlighting Obamacare, which is still disliked by a majority of the public and passionately by the Republican base.

The Democratic presidential candidates are also divided on the issue, with Hillary Clinton favoring improvements to the Affordable Care Act and Bernie Sanders wanting to scrap it (he claims amend it) for a single-payer system.

Longtime independent Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli calls it a “family feud.” He says the establishment in both parties is being challenged by outsiders with energized followers who are frustrated with the status quo.

“Between the Clinton and establishment wing of the party versus the Sanders, liberal, youth wing of the party, there are some real tensions and difference and it plays out in single-payer,” he said.

He says the question is how deep and lasting the rift could be. Especially since in the general election, Colorado is a key swing state.

Read more on the story at CPR here

Bernie Wins in Caucus Chaos – Colorado Public Radio, Ben Markus

Super Tuesday, March 1, Boulder, CO
Photo: AP/Brennan Linsley

The 122,000 Democrats, a record, turned out for Colorado’s Super Tuesday caucus. Bernie Sanders had to win Colorado to maintain a minimum level of credibility that there was a path to the nomination, and he did it with a 19-point win over Hillary Clinton.

In general, it wasn’t a good night for Sanders, losing seven states, mostly by big margins, but he’s still in the race.

A major question for November is if Clinton is the nominee, her ability to motivate turnout among Democrats who caucused for Sanders or would have supported her but stayed home.

An interview with CPR’s Ben Markus:

Floyd Ciruli, a longtime Colorado political pollster, says Sanders' support from young adults washed out any edge Clinton may have had with Latinos. 

"He was able to motivate them to turn out, to do something even more difficult, and that’s go to a caucus and spend some time there," Ciruli said. "Will they be motivated should she be the nominee?"

Colorado Dems Defy National Trend – 9KUSA

Nationally, Hillary Clinton tightened her grip on the Democratic nomination amidst low Super Tuesday turnout. In Colorado, Bernie Sanders won a 19-point victory in the same record turnout Barack Obama won by in 2008 – 120,000 caucus attendees.

Clinton had the endorsements and long experience in the state. Sanders had the Millennials and enthusiasm. He won in many places, but notched big wins in Larimer (last rally CSU), Boulder (rally at CU), Colorado Springs (rally CC), Denver (rally DU) and 20,000 supporters at the Convention Center.

Along with free college tuition, his position on decriminalization of marijuana is very popular with younger voters.

Colorado became one of Bernie’s four Super Tuesday states, along with his home of Vermont, the other caucus state of Minnesota and surprisingly Oklahoma. Sanders was disappointed, but at least close in Massachusetts.

9KUSA covered caucus night and had website coverage by Victoria Sanchez and Brandon Rittiman.

"It's work. You just don't walk in and vote for two minutes," said 9NEWS Political Analyst Floyd Ciruli.

Ciruli expects around 100,000 voters to show up to the contest that's big for Democrats but not for Republicans, who won't chose a statewide winner.

"The problem with that is that there's no excitement right now," he said.

See 9News story: Campaign volunteers gearing up for Super Tuesday

State Flooded Again with Ballot Initiatives

It has been clear since the ‘90s that the Colorado initiative process is a disaster. The original idea was that citizens could counter the big rail and mining industry’s stranglehold on the Colorado State Legislature. Now, however, eccentrics, extremists, out-of-state special interests and a host of well-meaning dilettantes are taking their pet projects into the petition process. There are already more than 100 petitions for initiatives filed. And, some observers believe it could exceed the record 145 in 2014.

It is, of course, still useful to have a citizen process to take on a gridlocked state legislature or a state government being held hostage by some special interest, but the volume and the bizarre and extreme nature of some recent initiatives, often deceptively described in ballot language, needs to be constrained.

There are already several initiatives filed to tighten the initiative process. It’s not easy changing the status quo, given the simple lack of trust in government that dominates so much of our public decision-making. Fortunately, good luck and skeptical voters have stopped many of the worst ideas. It should be pointed out that out of the 145 initiatives filed in 2014, only four made the ballot and voters only approved one. But Colorado’s luck will run out one of these election cycles.

Do Endorsements Help? – 9KUSA, Maya Rodriguez

In the invisible primary, money and endorsements have historically been the currency of the realm. In 2016, they have been much less valuable. Among Republicans, endorsements from the disliked establishment are a handicap.

But among Democrats, there has been a race to accumulate them, with Hillary Clinton the runaway winner. Clinton used them first to highlight a gun control theme and later just went for volume. Bernie Sanders caught a few high-profile names to emphasize the diversity of his support. Probably more valuable to Sanders is the thousands of younger voters who show up at his rallies and can be directed to a caucus.

A few of Bernie Sanders’ endorsements:

State Representative Joe Salazar (D-Thornton)
State Senator Michael Merrifield (D-Colorado Springs)
State Representative Jonathan Singer (D-Longmont)
Former Colorado Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll
Sondra Young, civil rights leader
John Ford, Jefferson County teacher education leader
Eric Montoya, Thornton City Council member and Mayor Pro Tem
Jacob Smith, former Mayor of Golden
Linda Powers, former Colorado State Senator
Reverend Patrick Demmer, civil rights leader

A few of the Colorado Democrats endorsing Hillary Clinton:

Governor John Hickenlooper
Senator Michael Bennet
Representative Diana DeGette
Representative Ed Perlmutter
Representative Jared Polis
Former Colorado U.S. Senator Ken Salazar
Lt. Governor Joe Garcia
Denver Mayor Michel Hancock
State Senator Pat Steadman
State House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst

See 9News Story: Is there value to endorsements in the race for president?

Bernie Sanders Must Win Colorado

Super Tuesday will not be a great night for Bernie Sanders given most of the events are in states 

Hillary Clinton has a demographic advantage in, especially from the percentage of Democrats of color. But Colorado has some advantages for him and is a must win.

Dan Frosch pointed out in The Wall Street Journal Monday that Sanders has attracted high crowds of young and liberal voters who he’s trying to organize into the March 1 caucuses. Barack Obama did it in 2008 and won the state two-to-one.

“This is definitely not only a winnable state, but I assume a necessary state if he is going to have any possibility of survival,” said Floyd Ciruli, a longtime independent pollster in Colorado.

Still, Mr. Ciruli said that Mr. Sander’s lagging momentum after losses in South Carolina and Nevada could hurt turnout for him here. And he noted that there did not seem to be the same enthusiasm among Colorado Democrats around Mr. Sanders that Barack Obama had engendered in 2008. That year, Mr. Obama trounced Mrs. Clinton by a roughly two to one margin in the state’s caucuses.