The Col­orado elec­tion results came fast and furi­ous Tues­day night, requir­ing dozens of Den­ver Post jour­nal­ists just to keep up with the new num­bers and race calls. Now that we’ve tak­en (half) a breath, here are some ini­tial takeaways.

1. Colorado’s blue is getting deeper

Don­ald Trump lost Col­orado by about 5 per­cent­age points in 2016. As of mid­night, Joe Biden led him by more than 14 points here.

And that’s just the start of it.

Repub­li­can U.S. Sen. Cory Gard­ner lost. Democ­rats are poised to seize con­trol of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado sys­tem for the first time in decades. Though sev­er­al state­house races remained too close to call as of mid­night, it was clear that Democ­rats would expand their major­i­ty in the state Sen­ate, a cham­ber they already con­trolled. Pre­vi­ous­ly com­pet­i­tive sub­ur­ban dis­tricts were Demo­c­ra­t­ic blowouts.

There is now one (1) statewide Repub­li­can elect­ed offi­cial in Col­orado: CU Regent Hei­di Ganahl.

Ryan Winger, a Repub­li­can-lean­ing poll­ster with Mag­el­lan Strate­gies, said Tues­day evening, “Until some­thing changes, Col­orado is a blue state.

“With Democ­rats hold­ing all major statewide offices, it’s pret­ty clear this is a state that has swung away from Repub­li­cans,” he said. “I think you might see some soul-search­ing (in the GOP).”

2. Voters were highly motivated

That may be an understatement.

The final bal­lot count won’t be avail­able until lat­er this week, but as of 5 p.m. on Elec­tion Day, the state report­ed 3.1 mil­lion bal­lots had been returned, with vot­ing still under­way at that point. That equates to near­ly 75% of reg­is­tered vot­ers and would set a record for at least the last two decades – and like­ly much longer back. We know the final per­cent­age will be higher.

As expect­ed, GOP turnout surged in the final day after Repub­li­cans unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly held onto their bal­lots in the ear­ly-return peri­od. In Tuesday’s less-than-final bal­lot count, Repub­li­cans’ turnout rate edged out Democ­rats slight­ly, at near­ly 80%, even as their raw vote totals lagged unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­ers and Democrats.

3. Hickenlooper won – big

Every polit­i­cal observ­er worth their salt expect­ed John Hick­en­loop­er to win the U.S. Sen­ate race. And while it’s not shock­ing he did so by a mar­gin of about 10% — as of ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing — it is noteworthy.

Sen­ate races in Col­orado were won by six points in 2016, two points in 2014, and less than that in 2010. Hick­en­loop­er may end up match­ing or maybe even bare­ly sur­pass­ing Mark Udall’s 10-point mar­gin from 2008.

Hick­en­loop­er did it with big mar­gins in the Den­ver sub­urbs. When Gard­ner beat Udall in 2014, he kept Udall’s mar­gins of vic­to­ry small in Adams Coun­ty (Udall won by 3), Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty (Udall by 2), and Jef­fer­son Coun­ty, where Udall won by less than a per­cent­age point. As of Tues­day night, Hick­en­loop­er led in Adams by 15 points, in Ara­pa­hoe by 21 points, and in Jef­fer­son Coun­ty by 15.

Inter­est­ing piece of triv­ia: With Gard­ner out of office next year, only one of Colorado’s nine mem­bers of Con­gress will have been born here. That’s Rep. Ed Perl­mut­ter, D‑Arvada.

4. Gardner needs a new job now

The Gard­ner-for-gov­er­nor spec­u­la­tion has begun.

“I think Cory could live to fight anoth­er day,” Dick Wad­hams, a for­mer Col­orado GOP chair, told The Den­ver Post on Tues­day night. “If he want­ed to run for gov­er­nor or sen­a­tor in 2022, he could do that.”

In his con­ces­sion speech, Gard­ner gave no hint of a future run for office. He knows Colorado’s polit­i­cal land­scape well, so don’t expect him to charge into a race he can’t win, and unless that land­scape changes a lot in two years, it’s hard to see how Gard­ner can win statewide in 2022.

But to Wad­hams’ point, Gard­ner is only 46, an age con­sid­ered young in pol­i­tics and few oth­er pro­fes­sions. In fact, he’s younger than Hick­en­loop­er was when Hick­en­loop­er began his polit­i­cal career in 2003. So, we may see more from Gard­ner, even if a statewide run in 2022 isn’t it.

5. Direct democracy for the win

Col­oradans eas­i­ly sup­port­ed a game-chang­ing and very pro­gres­sive pro­pos­al, Prop 118, to cre­ate a statewide paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave man­date. Work­ers will now be enti­tled to up to 12 weeks of paid time off — 16 in some cas­es — through a pro­gram that both employ­ees and employ­ers will pay into. There is close to no chance that the state leg­is­la­ture, which is con­trolled by Democ­rats, would have passed this ver­sion of this pol­i­cy. In fact, pro­gres­sives have tried for years to pass more mod­er­ate ver­sions of what Prop 118 promis­es. So sup­port­ers, backed by big finan­cial sup­port, took the fight to the bal­lot, and 57% of vot­ers gave it a thumbs up with 85% of the vote count­ed ear­ly Wednesday.

“We knew it was real­ly pop­u­lar on the out­side” of the Capi­tol, a jubi­lant state Sen. Faith Win­ter, D‑Westminster, said.

If a bill ver­sion of Prop 118 would’ve been unlike­ly to pass the leg­is­la­ture, Prop 116 — a cut to the state’s flat income tax — would’ve been even more of a long-shot. There is only one Demo­c­rat at the Capi­tol who has advo­cat­ed for this change, and it’s Gov. Jared Polis. Leg­isla­tive Democ­rats in fact would gen­er­al­ly like to see the income tax rate go in the oppo­site direc­tion, in a way that tax­es rich­er peo­ple at a high­er rate. Con­ser­v­a­tives placed this on the bal­lot and hard­ly broke a sweat on a vic­to­ri­ous Tues­day night. A relat­ed con­ser­v­a­tive fis­cal pro­pos­al, Prop. 117, was clos­er, but the “yes” side held a com­fort­able lead ear­ly Wednes­day morning.

6. Col­oradans stand firm on abortion

Despite polling that pre­dict­ed a tight race for Propo­si­tion 115, the ban on abor­tions past 22 weeks, Col­orado vot­ers firm­ly reject­ed it Tues­day.

Col­oradans have shot down three oth­er attempts to restrict abor­tion here, but advo­cates of legal abor­tion feared that more peo­ple would sup­port a ban lat­er in preg­nan­cy. The issue took on greater urgency after the death of Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg in Sep­tem­ber led to an even stronger con­ser­v­a­tive tilt on the high court.

“The vot­ers of Col­orado have spo­ken loud­ly and clear­ly — abor­tion bans have no place in our state,” said Lucy Ole­na, cam­paign man­ag­er for the No on 115 cam­paign in a state­ment. “For the fourth time in 12 years, Col­oradans have reject­ed attempts to ban abor­tion at the bal­lot, trust­ing patients and fam­i­lies to make the per­son­al med­ical deci­sions that are right for them, with­out inter­fer­ence from politicians.”

7. CD6 is no longer a battleground

It seems like just yes­ter­day that Colorado’s 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict — Auro­ra, among oth­er parts of Ara­pa­hoe, Adams and Dou­glas coun­ties — was the most close­ly watched House dis­trict in the state. Democ­rats tried and tried to unseat for­mer U.S. Rep. Mike Coff­man, a Repub­li­can and the cur­rent Auro­ra may­or, for years. Only in 2018, amid a blue wave, did they final­ly break through with Jason Crow, the Demo­c­rat who dethroned Coff­man. Just two years lat­er, Crow was dom­i­nant, lead­ing Repub­li­can Steve House by 18 as of midnight.

8. A new day in higher ed

With Ilana Spiegel’s like­ly win over Richard Mur­ray, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado Board of Regents Dis­trict 6 race was set to flip its board major­i­ty from Repub­li­can to Demo­c­rat for the first time since the 1970s.

The nine-mem­ber board, often crit­i­cized for its par­ti­san nature, is one of the few uni­ver­si­ty gov­ern­ing boards in the nation cho­sen through par­ti­san polit­i­cal elec­tions, evi­dent in votes along par­ty lines on issues as impor­tant as the 2019 selec­tion of Mark Kennedy as the system’s new president.

9. Changes for criminal justice

Democ­rats were poised Tues­day night for upsets in at least two dis­trict attor­ney races, and anoth­er race in the his­tor­i­cal­ly Repub­li­can 18th Judi­cial Dis­trict was sep­a­rat­ed by just 967 votes. Democ­rats led their races in the 1st, 8th and 17th judi­cial dis­tricts ear­ly Wednes­day morning.

A Demo­c­rat hasn’t won a dis­trict attor­ney race in the 1st Judi­cial Dis­trict, which cov­ers Jef­fer­son and Gilpin coun­ties, since 2000. No Demo­c­rat has been DA in the 8th dis­trict, which cov­ers Larimer and Jack­son coun­ties, since the 1970s.

The out­comes of the races could pro­voke a shift in the dynam­ics of Colorado’s crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, as many of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates promised reform dur­ing their campaigns.

10. Get ready for a more liberal state government

Democ­rats entered Elec­tion Day in dom­i­nant con­trol — 41 seats to the GOP’s 24 — of the state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We don’t know yet what exact­ly the par­ti­san split in that cham­ber will be come Jan­u­ary, as sev­er­al races remained too close for the AP to call late Tues­day, but on the pol­i­cy front, it may not mat­ter much.

But it’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry in the upper cham­ber. Democ­rats entered Elec­tion Day with a 19–16 advan­tage in the state Sen­ate, and with Chris Kolker’s win in Sen­ate Dis­trict 27, Democ­rats are assured to be up at least 20–15 next ses­sion. There are some state Sen­ate races that were too close for the AP to call late Tues­day, but it’s pos­si­ble Democ­rats pick up anoth­er seat or two.

Jump­ing from 19 to 20 is a big­ger deal that many may real­ize. With just a three-seat major­i­ty, the Sen­ate Democ­rats have been pret­ty mod­er­ate at times over the past two years. They couldn’t coa­lesce around a death penal­ty repeal in 2019. They nev­er coa­lesced around paid fam­i­ly leave, or an evic­tion mora­to­ri­um. They passed the red flag gun law by just one vote. Going from a three-seat cush­ion to a five-seat cush­ion gives Democ­rats more, well, cush­ion to go a bit bold­er on pro­gres­sive pro­pos­als mov­ing for­ward. That’ll be even more true if the cush­ion is sev­en seats — a real possibility.

11. A new day in Denver?

May­or Michael Han­cock may be los­ing a bit of his strong-may­or author­i­ty as pre­lim­i­nary elec­tion results Tues­day night showed vot­er sup­port for mea­sures 2E and 2G. The first would require council’s approval for cer­tain may­oral appointees, and the sec­ond would allow coun­cil to change the city’s bud­get mid-year with some restric­tions. Mea­sures 2E and 2G held a lead of 9 per­cent­age points and near­ly 5 per­cent­age points, respectively.

Han­cock active­ly opposed the mea­sures — and called on a num­ber of high-pro­file friends to do the same — but City Coun­cil­woman Robin Kniech said vot­ers saw through that polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed oppo­si­tion campaign.

“There’s a dif­fer­ence between strong may­or and absolute pow­er,” Kniech said. “We have a strong may­or now, and we will have a strong may­or tomor­row. This is about ensur­ing that we can have a good debate.”

Coun­cil­woman Aman­da Sawyer, who spon­sored 2E, agreed. She not­ed that while Han­cock cam­paigned against the mea­sures, she and her staff let the issues speak for themselves.

“It was a risk, but a cal­cu­lat­ed risk,” Sawyer said. “We intro­duced these mea­sures because we heard from the com­mu­ni­ty that they want­ed more trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty from the gov­ern­ment, and that’s what we brought them.”

12. No, Kanye wasn’t a factor

We nev­er thought he would be one. And, lo and behold, rap­per and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Kanye West won just 0.2% of the vote.

Staff writ­ers Elise Schmelz­er, Justin Wingert­er, Saja Hin­di, Eliz­a­beth Her­nan­dez, John Aguilar, Jon Mur­ray and Con­rad Swan­son con­tributed to this report.