Candidates, Donors, Outsiders Have Spent More Than $200M In Colo.

DENVER, CO – by Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. Colorado’s four major statewide races — governor, attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer — attracted more than $60 million in spending this election, according to the final pre-election campaign finance reports, filed this week.

It’s a significant chunk of the more than $200 million poured into the 2018 Colorado election overall. All that spending has largely been fueled by deep-pocketed donors and outside spending groups.

This mid-term election cycle has been the most expensive in the state’s history, with spending up about $50 million over the 2014 midterms, according to filings posted by the secretary of state’s office. Final, post-election reports will come out by Dec. 6, one month after the election’s over.
We wrote earlier about the big money pouring into contests at the state legislature, which may or may not swing blue this year. Independent expenditure committees have spent more than $12 million alone on just seven state Senate races. Read all about it here.

Tomorrow, we’ll report more on the massive outside spending on Colorado’s 13 ballot measures. The vast majority of that cash is coming from the oil and gas industry, which is the subject of two of the state’s most controversial measures this year, Proposition 112 and Amendment 74.

As for the statewide candidates, we’re guessing you’ve heard about Jared Polis’s spending or seen his countless TV ads and inferred from that he’s spent big. But that’s not the only storyline of interest in candidates’ final pre-election reports.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent

Image: From left, attorney general candidate Phil Weiser and secretary of state candidates Jena Griswold and Wayne Williams all attended a candidate forum Oct. 16 in south Denver. (Photo by Evan Semón for The Colorado Independent)