Colorado Politics’ Marianne Goodland reports that Colorado’s 2026 general election will feature 21 state Senate races, the highest number in at least three decades. The reason is not just ordinary political churn. Several senators were appointed to fill vacancies during the 2025 and 2026 sessions, which means voters are only now getting their first chance to weigh in on people already sitting in the seats.
The article also notes that 15 House members will not return next term, with all 65 House seats already up in November. Some lawmakers are term-limited. Some are chasing other offices. Some are simply heading for the exits. Fine. People leave jobs. But when the Capitol starts looking like musical chairs with better parking, voters ought to ask who is moving the chairs.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado will see 21 Senate seats on the ballot this year, which Colorado Politics says is the most in at least three decades. That is not normal turnover. That is the dashboard light blinking while the political class says, “Probably fine.”
- Five appointed senators will face voters for the first time in November: Democrats Matt Ball, Adrienne Benavidez, Iman Jodeh, and Katie Wallace, plus Republican Lynda Zamora Wilson. Legal? Yes. A great look for representative government? Not unless your idea of democracy is a tiny room full of insiders nodding at each other.
- The departures are not confined to one party. Democrats are defending a lot of turf, including seats tied to the 2018 wave, while Republicans see openings where churn creates uncertainty. But this is bigger than a consultant’s horse-race memo. This is about whether voters or vacancy committees are driving the bus.
- The House side is not exactly a picture of calm either. Fifteen members are out, including seven term-limited lawmakers and eight others running elsewhere or simply leaving. When that many people are moving on, institutional memory walks out with them, probably carrying a box of nameplates and abandoned bill drafts.
- High turnover means more new faces, shakier committee work, and more room for lobbyists who know the building better than the people elected to oversee it. The insiders will tell us this is all perfectly normal. Sure. And the dog ate the ethics report.
My Bottom Line
Representative government works best when representatives are actually chosen by the represented. That should not be controversial, but Colorado’s vacancy-committee culture has made it feel almost quaint to say voters should come first. Appointment politics may be legal. It may even be necessary in some cases. But when enough appointed lawmakers stack up that 21 Senate seats are suddenly on the ballot, the public is right to squint.
This is not apocalypse theater. Nobody needs to run into the street waving a pocket Constitution and yelling about the end times. But we should be honest about what is happening. A small political club can hand someone the keys, let that person vote on bills, build a title, raise money as an incumbent, and only later ask the actual voters to approve the arrangement. That is not illegal. It is also not exactly a civics-class poster.
Both parties use the system. Both parties benefit from it when it suits them. Both parties will explain it with very serious faces and procedural language until your ears go numb. That is the trick. Process sludge is where accountability goes to nap.
The good news is that voters finally get the final word. Not caucus gamers. Not vacancy committees. Not career climbers hopping from office to office like the Capitol is a trampoline park. Voters. That is the part of the system worth defending, and this year Colorado voters are going to have a lot of defending to do.
Source: Colorado Politics
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