2016 United States Senate election in Colorado


The 2016 United States Senate election in Colorado was held November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Colorado, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Major party candidates can qualify for the ballot through party assemblies or by petition. To qualify by assembly, a candidate must receive at least 30 percent of the vote from the party's state assembly. To qualify by petition, the candidate must file at least 1,500 signatures from each congressional district by April 4, 2016.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet won re-election to a second full term in office. Bennet's main challenger was Republican nominee Darryl Glenn, an El Paso County commissioner. Glenn won a crowded, five-way Republican primary in June. Three other candidates were on the ballot: former Eagle County Commissioner Arn Menconi was the Green Party nominee; Lily Tang Williams was the Libertarian Party nominee; and Unity Party of America Chairman Bill Hammons was the Unity Party nominee. Bennet's final vote total of 1,370,710 is a new record and makes him the largest vote-getter in the history of statewide elections in Colorado, topping Hillary Clinton's 1,338,870, concurrently in the presidential election.

Background

Democratic U.S. Senator Ken Salazar resigned in January 2009 to become United States Secretary of the Interior and Governor Bill Ritter appointed Bennet, the Superintendent of Denver Public Schools, to replace him. Bennet was elected to a full term in 2010, defeating Republican Ken Buck by 48.1% to 46.4%.

Democratic primary

was unopposed for renomination.

Candidates

Declared

Republican primary

The Colorado Republican Party State Assembly was held April 9, 2016. Darryl Glenn won the convention with 70% of the vote. Robert Blaha, Jack Graham, Jon Keyser, and Ryan Frazier sought to qualify for the ballot by petition instead of through the State Assembly.
Glenn won the June primary with about 37.5% of the vote in the crowded, five-candidate Republican primary field.

Candidate controversies

In early May, the Denver ABC affiliate uncovered over 10 forged voter signatures on the petition which placed Republican candidate Jon Keyser on the June Republican primary ballot. The circulator who forged the signatures was arrested for 34 felonies. A late May lawsuit claiming at least 60 forged signatures based on the analysis of a handwriting expert and challenging Keyser's placement on the primary ballot was dismissed because it didn't fall within the five-day window to challenge a ballot placement.
When asked on-camera about the forgeries, Keyser didn't address the issue and proceeded to inform the interviewer that Keyser's dog was larger than the interviewer.
In early June, when asked by a fellow Republican candidate and a retired air force lieutenant colonel whether Keyser received his Bronze Star for work on a software program or for "kicking in doors" in combat as "represented to the community", Keyser refused to answer the question and claimed he had "no idea" what software program his rival was talking about. Yet, according to the article announcing Keyser's citation, Keyser "developed and implemented a unique and effective technique to provide critical force protection and situational-awareness data to ground counter-terrorism operations."
In August 2014, Republican candidate Jack Graham was fired as Colorado State University Athletic Director for reasons that were not specified, though he would continue to be paid through the November 2016 election.

Candidates

Declared

Results

Darryl Glenn won the general primary on June 28 and went on to face the other candidates in the November election.

Third party and independent candidates

Declared

General election

Debates

Predictions

Polling


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;with Scott Tipton

Results

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