COLORADO POLITICS - As Colorado’s Republican and Democratic primaries for governor hit the final stretch, campaign finance reports filed Monday detail an big-ticket race that continues to set records, with two self-funding candidates accounting for roughly $9 million of the nearly $15 million spent so far.
The latest totals confirm predictions that the race to succeed term-limited Democrat John Hickenlooper will be the most expensive gubernatorial contest in state history.
With six months to go until the November election, the $15 million in candidate spending has already surpassed the roughly $10 million total spent each of the last three times Colorado has elected a governor, and there’s no sign it’s slowing down.
Four Democrats and four Republicans are vying for their parties’ nominations in the June 26 primary. By nearly every measure, Democrats outpaced Republicans for the reporting period, which covered money raised and spent from Jan. 1 to May 2.
After adding $5 million to his own campaign coffers since the first of the year — bringing his total self-funding to around $6.3 million — U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, spent just over $6 million for the period. The Boulder Democrat finished the quarter with about $500,000 in the bank.
