The big day is here. After over a year of campaigning, organizing support for and through the caucuses and county primaries, and sending multiple pieces of mail and putting out radio, TV, and web spots, the primary for Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District is here. I’ll have running updates throughout the night with commentary as well.
As of 7:20P, Polis is up by 3 points. This is from early voting returns, which finished last Friday. I’ll provide links as I catch them. Here are the early return numbers:
Polis 5,897
Fitz-Gerald 5,555
Shafroth 2,990
457 precincts have to report in now.
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As of 7:40P, with 13 precincts (3%) reporting, Jared is maintaining his very narrow lead, up to 569 votes:
Polis 8,598
Fitz-Gerald 8,029
Shafroth 3,655
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As of 8:30P, with 29 precincts (6%) reporting, the lead narrows slightly:
Polis 9,183
Fitz-Gerald 8,726
Shafroth 3,974
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Results continue to come in slowly. As of 9:00P, with 68 precincts (15%) reporting, Polis’ vote lead has increased:
| Jared Polis | 14,676 | 43.2% | |
| Joan Fitz-Gerald | 13,290 | 39.1% | |
| Will Shafroth | 5,991 | 17.6% |
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We’re up to 21% reporting (95 precincts) as of 9:50P. Jared’s lead is slimmed down somewhat, but news is he has carried Adams County. Joan Fitz-Gerald currently represents some of Jefferson County, so I’ll keep an eye open for those.
| Jared Polis | 15,366 | 43.0% | |
| Joan Fitz-Gerald | 14,052 | 39.3% | |
| Will Shafroth | 6,355 | 17.8% |
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As of 10:20P, Joan Fitz-Gerald conceded the race to Jared Polis. There is still only 27% of the ballots officially counted, so I’m not sure what Joan is aware of at this time. I would think this race still has a while to go, but I certainly hope the result remains.
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CO-02 results continue to slowly come in. Jared Polis is still in the lead, by 1,300 votes, or about 3.6%.
Jared Polis |
16,047 | 42.8% | |
| Joan Fitz-Gerald | 14,706 | 39.2% | |
| Will Shafroth | 6,778 | 18.1% |
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Update 8/13/08:
Jared hung on to win the primary. With 452 out of 457 precincts (97%) reporting, here is the state of the race:
| Jared Polis |
19,942 | 41.7% | |
| Joan Fitz-Gerald | 18,181 | 38.0% | |
| Will Shafroth | 9,708 | 20.3% |
Jared still faces a Republican and a Green candidate in November’s election. I’ll cover the differences between the candidates in some future posts.
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Other Congressional districts also had primaries yesterday. The ethically challenged Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman won his primary for the 6th Congressional District in a bid to replace the extremist Tom Tancredo. Doug Lamborn survived a primary challenge to retain his seat in the 5th Congressional District.
A large number of state Senate and House seats also had primaries yesterday. You can see their results here. The odious Douglas Bruce is on that list. After embarrassing himself during the 2008 legislative session, Colorado Springs residents decided not to send him back. Rollie Heath beat Cindy Carlisle to represent the 18th Senate District.
