Colorado’s U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R) has lost his race for re-election. The next U.S. Senator from Colorado will be John Hickenlooper, a former governor of the state who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination before shifting his focus to running for the U.S. Senate. Hickenlooper will be joining Colorado’s other U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, who is also a Democrat, in the halls of Congress.
Breaking News: Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, unseated Sen. Cory Gardner in a race seen as key to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate.https://t.co/q3VH7cZ5hX
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2020
Flipping Gardner’s seat to the Democrats is a critical pick-up in the Democratic fight to gain control of the U.S. Senate. Other U.S. Senate seats that have been top targets for Democrats include seats in Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina, held by Martha McSally, Susan Collins, and Thom Tillis, respectively. Other U.S. Senate seats that leaned somewhat towards Republicans but were still possible pick-ups for Democrats ahead of Election Day included seats in Iowa, South Carolina, and Georgia. (As the night went on, Democrats lost the Senate race in South Carolina.) Former President Barack Obama even made a late campaign stop in Atlanta, where he didn’t just stump for Biden but also stumped for Democratic U.S. Senate candidates in that state including Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
Former Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has won the Colorado Senate race, Decision Desk reports.
This is a key pickup for Democrats; he will replace Cory Gardner (R) in the Senate. #COsen https://t.co/EKaX7a8m3Y pic.twitter.com/RuX1W02OAc
— Vox (@voxdotcom) November 4, 2020
Ahead of Election Day, FiveThirtyEight gave Democrats a somewhat higher chance of winning majority status in the U.S. Senate compared to Republicans, who held the Senate throughout all four years of Donald Trump’s post-2016 term. The Republican majority in the U.S. Senate provided a critical buffer for Trump against efforts from Democrats in Congress to hold the president accountable for his corruption. After the Democrat-led House impeached Trump, only one solitary Republican member of the U.S. Senate — Utah’s Mitt Romney — voted to convict the president.
Fox projects that Dem John Hickenlooper will defeat GOP CO Sen Cory Gardner. First pickup of the night for Dems in their quest to win the Senate
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) November 4, 2020
Republican Senators — including Gardner — have also boosted the White House on issues like judicial appointments. The Senate has confirmed three of Trump’s picks for the U.S. Supreme Court, including Amy Coney Barrett, who was just recently confirmed to the court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, no matter the Senate GOP’s own precedent of waiting to fill a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy that comes up during presidential election years. The GOP claimed that circumstances were a green light because, unlike in 2016 when they refused to confirm an Obama appointee, the White House and Senate were held by the same party.
BREAKING: Former Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper will win the Senate race in Colorado, defeating GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, @ABC News projects. https://t.co/Pc1O6Ms3C2 #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/O0mQFJsKrF
— ABC News (@ABC) November 4, 2020
