Two state senators voted in during recall election, voted out
Two Colorado State Senators who were voted in during September’s recall election were voted out in Tuesday’s midterm election.
A recall against state Senate Democrats Angela Giron and John Morse launched last summer. Giron represented Senate District 3 in Pueblo. Morse represented Senate District 11 in Colorado Springs.
A recall effort started after the two helped push forward three controversial gun bills in Colorado. The bills mandated background checks for private and online gun sales, and limited magazine sizes.
Voters ousted Giron and Morse and replaced them with Republicans George Rivera in District 3 and Bernie Herpin in District 11.
In Tuesday’s election, the Republicans were voted out and two Democrats were voted in. Michael Merrifield beat Herpin by a 10-point margin for District 11’s seat.Leroy M. Garcia beat Rivera by a 10-point margin for District 3’s seat.
Political analyst Bob Loevy said this was to be expected.
“Those were Democratic seats to begin with,” said Loevy.
Loevy said Tuesday’s results do not reflect people’s attitudes toward the gun legislation. Instead, the results show the difference in who showed up to vote.
“The unusual situation surrounding of the recall shifted them Republican. Once we had the regular electorate voting in a regular election, the seats swiftly went back Democratic,” said Loevy.
Morse said he is disappointed those voters did not show up to vote in his recall election.
“If we could have gotten another 500 people to show up, I would have won,” said Morse.
Morse said he believes his constituents supported the decisions he made about gun legislation.
“I have no question that my constituents, and the state of Colorado support me and the gun bills,” said Morse.
Morse said this midterm election went just as he predicted.
“We knew those bills would stay in effect even if the recall succeeded and I said those seats would go right back to Democrats during the 2014 election,” said Morse.
Morse said he is not planning on running for a political office again in the future but he is also not ruling it out.
