This week brough a lot of change and uncertainty to Colorado.

Wildfires are burning across the state.

Firefighters are putting their lives on the line, and hundreds of Coloradans have lost their homes.

And with near tripl digit temperatures ahead of us and a long, dry summer still in front of us, the question becomes, what comes next?

And when it comes to leadership, there's uncertainty there, too.

Colorado's primaries are over.

But the bigger question is what happens next?

Where is Colorado headed?

Our insiders have a lot to share, so let's get started wit this week's Colorado Inside Out.

Hi everyone I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introducing you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun, founde and editor emeritus of Westword.

Penfield Tate, Denver attorney and former state rep and state senator at the Colorado Legislature.

Adam Berg, senior policy advisor with Foster Graham law firm and Amber McReynolds, one of the country's leading experts on election administration and polic and former Director of Elections for the City and County of Denver.

Thursday morning, county clerks reported final unofficial totals, with Victor Mark inching further ahead of Barbara Kirk Meyer and the race for the Republican nomination for governor.

So what did this contes between a newcomer to politics and an experienced legislator reveal about today's Republican Party in Colorado, as it tries to now unite heading into the November election?

Patti.

The current Colorado Republican Party needs an exorcism.

I don't know if Victor Marx can do it over the phone, but I cannot even imagine how harebrained this election will be in November.

We would have with Kirk Meyer.

We would have had really interesting discussions of policies, whether or not she probably wouldn't have won, but she would com closer than Victor Marks will.

She is a public servant who knows her stuff.

He is a liar and a shyster and the only way he can improve his candidacy is to make Tin Peters his Lieutenant governor.

Haha.

That's what you're saying?

That's what I'm saying.

And I have got I've got some ideas too, for Phil Weiser that we can get into later.

Okay.

Okay, Penn.

You know, I think Patty has an interesting idea when when you looked at the the primary and that's out of the ballot, you've got to believe Barbara Kirk Meyer and the Republican Party have to request a recount and pay for it and do that.

The party knows tha there's no way Victor Marx wins a statewide election.

That's not happening in th least with Barbara Kirk Meyers.

Patty said you can have some policy conversation and more importantly, you can test out and push Phil Wiser a little bit, in his campaign.

Otherwise, Victor Marx is going to run around.

I don't know if he campaigns North of Castle Rock except to go to Greeley.

He calls everybody a commie, which is going to turn off the voters who are showing up in protest to Trump.

And it will simply, like, antagonize the democratic socialist.

He's not going to be able to put Kairos on.

Why is there?

Because I don't think he has enough message discipline to do it.

So Barbara's got to challeng this as far as she can push it.

I know what you're thinking or thinking.

I mean, look, Democrat have won every statewide office since 2018.

We haven't electe a Republican governor since Bill Owen's reelection in 2002.

So I'm not saying it doesn't matter who wins this primary in terms of the total outcome but it's a stretch either way.

I think the bigger question is who is the Colorado Republican Party anymore?

And you have much like the progressives and the moderates on the Democratic side, kind of these two fractions that have portioned themselve out, as we've seen historically, often in the primary, the more extreme does better.

The hard par is getting back to that middle.

How are you going to pick up unaffiliated voters at the end of the day?

And like Patty said, I think Senator Kirk Meyer would have a better pitch to unaffiliated voters if we get to the general.

I think we're going to see, not very close rac if if the ultimate results hold.

Amber, this is your world election administration and recounts and all this.

Yeah.

I you know, there's a couple things that I always look at.

Post any election.

First, you know, turnout is always a thing that people talk about.

It looks like the state's going to come in right around 37%.

But the other thing that I always find interesting is the under roads and, Denver elections division does a great job of reporting under votes and over votes there on their results page.

The secretary of state's office.

Right.

I'm not really sure why they'r not posting it statewide, but, for some reason they don't have it on their results page.

But if you just take Denver's and then calculate that what that percentage would be statewide in the GOP governor race, it's about 2%, which comes out to be about 10,000 ballots that were under voted in that race, which is far greater than the margin, of victory for for the current, leader.

And so I, you know, the under votes to me are always fascinating because that means people took an effort made an effort to vote a ballot, but under vote in a race, they didn't cast the Oval, they didn't mark the Oval for a particular race.

I find it always a fascinating exploration post election.

So they left it blank.

They left it blank.

So if we went in and found out that information, what does that tell us?

Well, so it says a few things.

Voter weren't happy with the choices it could mean they made a mistake, skipped it accidentally, could mean a lot of things.

Okay.

You know, last week, Colorado's primary election sent a clear signal as the progressive candidates scored several high profile victories.

Now, this week, we're beginning to see some of the political fallout with an unaffiliated candidat trying to qualify for the ballot in the first Congressional district.

Questions are also growing about where Colorado's progressive movement goes.

And also at the same time, we're looking at Republicans maybe looking for ways to make those primary results part of their November messaging.

So, Penfield, are we witnessing a passing political moment or the beginnin of a much longer political shift in Colorado?

You know I think it's too early to tell.

And the reason why is I'm not convinced this CD1 vote was a pro democratic socialist agenda vote.

I think it was a combination of anti-Trump sentiment and anti-incumbent not affective enough sentiment.

You know, you'll notice in Diana's campaign, she ran a bunch of, TV commercials about how she was beaten up on Trump.

She was going after Trump.

And people in Colorado, like, I never know if she did any of that.

When did that happen?

Curious, on the other hand, spoke and I saw her a couple times, largely in soundbites.

I did not hear a lot of substantive things.

And frankly, the reason she's now facing this potential independen challenge is some of the things she said that were substantive were pretty inflammatory.

And so, I'm not convinced this is a passing moment just yet.

It may be a temporary reaction to the current political environment.

What's also I think, going to be fascinating from my point of view is to see how Carroll runs.

But I get the sense that she is someone who wants to project herself as the new wave o an emerging political movement and part of this national DSA effort.

And I think that could hurt her, because if she gets too far out in front of herself and start saying some of the thing that have generated concern now, it's going to be difficult for her.

But more importantly, it's going to make it.

It could create an issue for the Democratic ticket.

But the problem Republicans have is people are so over Trump.

I don't know how they capitalize on that kind of I either love though there's tell me they actually voted for chaos because they wanted their own mom.

In Denver.

Here's the problem.

Madame is the mayor.

Kairos is one member of Congress, so her ability to actually influence policy changes is much more limited.

I think it's it's an interesting outcome.

What it makes me actually think, too, is the upcomin municipal elections next year.

So if I, Mayor Johnston or counci and I'm looking at 20, 27 races, I'm starting to think about, is DSA more organized?

Who are they planning to run?

We already have Sarah Purdy, who has had to step aside for health reasons, but opening in that large seat.

And we're going to know a lot more in the coming year about if this is more rooted in kind of the metro area, which when you look at election outcomes, it seems to be where progressives had large momentum, was kind of metro and suburban metro area.

Let's be very clear.

There's still really strong Republican holds on the West Slop and other parts of this state.

But we're going to learn a whole lot about the Denver electorate and the metro electorate in the coming year.

And that could really change the politics, from a metro perspective.

I think it was a frustration vote.

And I and I and it on the one hand, establishment on the other people are working their tails off.

Costs are rising.

We have fires and we have water issues, and we have like there's jus a lot of voters are frustrated.

They're also rejecting the tw parties like half more than half the state is not affiliated with either party anymore.

We have under votes.

People didn't even bother or didn't want to pick one of the people in a lot of these competitive races.

So I think there's a there's a it's a it's a frustration.

To me, this election was about people's frustration with in every rac when you look across the ballot.

And, and I think we're going to see all that play out coming into November as well.

I also think people should be on notice that the electorate is sort of also over a 30, 40, 50 year career.

Oh, now they're going to run for that office, and now they're going to sit in that safe seat for however long and and whatever that looks like.

So, you know, I think it's I think it's a combination of things.

And we'll see exactly as Adam said, how this plays out over the next year or so here.

Patty, I think really the ticket race was an anti Diana to get because she'd been in office for so long.

It was just we don't want the same old faces.

She didn't she wasn't really out there campaigning with any kind of vigo if she was campaigning at all.

So if she wanted to make a case for she's just as important and lively as she ever was.

And she never was exactly a livewire.

She was a workhorse.

People just were tired of that.

And we saw it also in some of the Hickenlooper vote and some of the Bennet vote.

They just wanted new faces, not necessarily DSA faces.

We will get an idea of that just even before next year's municipal election.

Come August, when Sarah party leaves, we're going to have a very quick election.

Just to fill that seat for, what, five months?

And who triumphs that in?

That will be amazing.

Okay.

While the election headlines often focus on who won, who lost.

There is another stor unfolding in Colorado politics, a major transition in leadership when the General Assembly convenes in January.

Colorado will have a new governor, a new attorney general, a new secretary of state, a new state treasurer, and potentially dozens of new legislators for businesses and local government and nonprofits and anyone else.

Or that works with a state that means rebuildin relationships and then adjusting to all sorts of new priorities.

So is this major transition in leadership and opportunity for Colorado or will it be a challenge, as all the new state leaders, kind of try to figure out how to work together?

You're at the Gold Dome.

You know what relation how relationships matter.

What do you think?

It's always an opportunity, right?

Having new people come in, and this is a major election.

We have all 65 state House seats on the ballot.

We have 21 of 35 Senate seats, partially because of vacancies, which we we won't get into the vacancy process.

But, I think there's no mistake that Democrats will continue to hold large majorities in both chambers.

The larger question is, who are those Democrats?

Are they this more progressive faction who gains more influence and drives some of those policies that over the last couple of years, whether it's Labor Act or some of the other housin efforts that have been held off, and now we're able to push through.

And I think what's most critical from my perspective is we had very thin margins last year in some of these committees, House finance, for example, where you had a couple kind of moderate Dems who were your buffer.

If you're a business and you're looking at some of this anti-business legislation, and we lost, frankly, a couple of those seats.

And so the margins have gotten thinner.

And what that means is it's a whole new board next year when we come in.

A lot of the same players in the lobby, a lot of the same issues but different decision makers.

There's a lot of opportunity that I see.

In particular just a couple of observations.

Again about even the election itself.

A late June election is a problem for a variety of reasons.

I've talked about this for many years.

I think considering moving that timeline up to be the last Tuesday in May or the first or the first Tuesday in May, or the last Tuesday in April.

You know, college kids get out, move off campus.

So there's a whole bunch of now inactive voters that just moved out of their college residential addresses because they left school at mid-May.

We sent ballots out around that same time period.

So this kind of late June, especially how late it was this year in the same week as July 4th is, is a tough time to have an election.

And I hope policymakers dive in and maybe look at that structure, you know, are we really are we running the election, especially in the primary process that we should be running to respon to what voters are telling us?

I think those are all questions that will be important for this new wave of leadership to consider as well.

Okay, Patty, what do you think it's going to be?

Not just an opportunity, but a real challenge when you think about how much knowledge is leaving how much institutional knowledge is leaving.

And that leaves the lobbyists and the people who are at the Gold Dome like you, but not they're not like you because they're not necessarily honorable and smart about what they're doing.

They will know more than a lot of the people coming in, and we're going to miss a lot of leadership.

And one of the ideas I had for Bill Weiser's lieutenant governor would be Jillian McCluskey.

So a Western Slope speaker of the House.

So she's been there for a while.

She has to leave.

She's term limited.

She'd be a great lieutenant governor candidate because we need to hav the rural Colorado represented.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.

You've been there.

What do you think is going to happen?

You know, I just have to mention something that I've mentioned before.

If if you're concerned about the turmoil, the upheaval and the change, remember we did this to ourselves in 1992.

We passed yet, term limits and it generated this entire cycle we're dealing with now.

We've survived it because eight years ago, the same statewide offices are being elected.

Now we're all vacant eight years ago, and we have the new group.

The issue is to Patty and Adams point both is the institutional knowledge and experience is no longer vested in the elected or serving members of the two bodies.

It's in the lobby and it's with the legislative staff, which has much more influence over the process than you might imagine, becaus they know what the history is.

And so, you know, we'll survive this.

We'll get through it.

It's the dynamics different.

I remember when the religious right was in ascendance back in the 90s, in 2000.

Now you've got two different dynamics, both the MAGA contingent an the Republican Party in this DSA or what may be a DSA contingent in the Democratic Party.

They're going to have to figure out how to govern, because sitting around th chamber hollering at each other isn' what people are going to accept.

No you won't.

Patty brought up a really interesting idea of who could be the lieutenant governors.

You say Tina Peters and Julie McCarthy, Tina Peters.

I mean, what could be better?

I want to ask each of you, hypothetically, who do you think could possibly be lieutenant governor?

You said so.

I'm going to start with you, Pan.

I could see James Coleman as a candidate.

I don' know what Victor Marks will do.

I have to be honest, I can't tell.

So.

And I could see why is there selecting maybe someone from a county commission or city council?

And I like Patty's idea.

Someone rural.

Awesome.

Okay.

What do you think?

It's interesting.

I think, Sandr Coleman is an interesting name.

The question is, is he is that transition he would like to make at this point?

I think speaker McCluskey would be an excellent choice.

I think a county commissioner, whether that's from Adams or a more rural county, to kind of bring in, a little bit more of a coalition on the Republican side.

I think it it's a crapshoot.

It just depends.

Right.

I don't know if Victor Marcus is your your main candidate.

Who do you hav that wants to join the ticket?

Who's going to be the person who tries to bring in a bigger tent of folks?

Okay.

What do you think, Amber?

Well, I think on the on the Dems on for wiser.

I, I think he'll pick probably Jenny.

Who was the former mayor of Fort Collins.

I think he'll go outside of Denver.

I think it'd be amazing for one of these governor candidates to choose someone who's unaffiliated.

Given that, again, half of the state, more than half of the state is now there.

I think for Victor Marks, given where the priorities are, you know, maybe it's someone from the law enforcement community.

Maybe, you know, I just don't know where all of all of his priorities lie.

But I could see him pulling, you know, someone based on what his priorities might be.

And we have to remember Barbara, Barb Kirk Meyer did say she would not support his candidacy if he won.

And an interesting thing to Ambers Point, the part of the reason we have so many unaffiliated voters now is over the past 8 to 10 years, voters from both major political parties got disillusioned and became unaffiliated.

So there is a large talent pool in the unaffiliated ranks.

The other thing I wonder, and I'd like to see more at the national level, is whether either Phil Wiser or Marks would pick a lieutenant governor from the other party.

But I think Wiser and Marcus may want to have a short list of Republicans and Democrats, respectively.

They'd consider running with them.

Okay, we would be talking about that on this table for sure.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

So everybody else.

Yeah.

So Colorado is being tested b the elements right now.

Right.

As we head into a stretch of almost tripled degree temperatures this weekend, wildfire smoke continues to impact air quality.

And firefighters are battlin dangerous wildfires in Colorado and have lost homes.

And the challenges go just beyond fire.

After a dry winter.

Concerns continue to mount abou water supplies across Colorado as these challenges continue.

Where does Colorado need to really focus its resources and its people on, not only for today and in the months and years ahead to prepare for the what's next?

Because there will be a what's next, Amber?

Absolutely.

And I will say I, one of the previous roles I had, I served on the redistricting commission and we did I had over 80 public meetings statewide, every single meeting, every single meeting.

And so this was in 2021, every single meeting people brought up water issues and every corner of the state in every community.

I mean, it is it is the top issue that, frankly, has been percolating for a while.

It's going to require leadership from state leaders in the legislature, the new people that are going to be sworn in in January, like this is a topic that is deeply concerning to people across Colorado.

And it is a it is a topic that is deeply local and deeply community orientated, and it affects every single person in the state.

And it is it has been a top issue, and it's going to continue to be a very important issue, especially as people are affected with fires and everything else.

The way that the way that we are seeing play out right now.

Patty well, we have to be sur we don't waste water personally.

Right.

The people who are still setting off fireworks in dangerous areas are doing are campground that had fires and campgrounds where they were banned.

There should be severe punishment for those people.

We also just have to hope that the feds are able, with their new kind of super firefighting plan under AG.

They pull that together well, because it's a long, hot summer, not just in Colorado.

There are so many needs, and the next fire in the next state might get the most attention, right and might get some of our resources.

Peopl that are here fighting our fires will go to that next state.

And yeah, and Colleen, you I think all the issues raised are interrelated.

And I agree with Amber.

I think the most important issue, and it's not getting enough talking attention is water.

You can figure out and you ca manufacture and build housing.

But to my knowledge, no one's figured out how to make more water.

So it is what it is.

We'v we've got to manage it better.

And it would be, I think the next governor that's got to be there.

One of their top priorities, if not the top priority.

I think the new congressional delegation needs to focus on that.

We as a state cannot afford to let the Congress or the presidential administration resolve the issues around the Colorado River.

We have got to figure out a way to harness the political capital within our state, and with upper basin and lower basin states, to negotiate a reasonable compromise that is going to have to incorporate conservation in urban areas, conservation and eg land innovation and ag land and a host of other things, because we're getting to a pretty dire point when you see systems draining reservoirs, because the, the, the, evaporation loss is too great to keep the reservoir full.

You've got a problem.

And Adam, I mean, if you thought data centers and public utility issues were tough to tackle last session, just wait till we get to next year and just going forward, because Excel and data centers are going to be big topics.

Right?

Dave, I think Excel is trying to get in front of their own infrastructure in terms of potential wildfire risk.

I think people are worried about data centers and water consumption.

The thing I think we also need to talk abou beyond the human issue, right, which is people are losing their homes and animals are losing their homes.

Is the economic cost of these these fires are massively expensive.

They are a drain on local resources as they diminish tourism.

They can take years and years and millions and millions of dollars to try and mitigate, after the fact.

And, last I checked, our states not in a great financial position.

Even with some federal support from FEMA.

It can be complicated, given the whole West is having wildfire issues.

So we need to figure out, as a, as a state how do we manage going forward?

Because these issues will not be going away.

They will, you know, and that affects every household too, because one of the things people don't talk about is insurance companies are raising home insurance rates on everybody, whether you live in a forested or rural area or not.

We're all subsidizing the cost of this, and that impacts household budgets on the regular.

Yeah, we sure do.

Okay, now let's go around the table and talk about some of the highs and the lows of this week.

We'll start on a low note and with Patty, it is sa that our DPS superintendent had was getting a coach at $100,000 over the last three years, and still didn't even mak the cut for the Miami-Dade job.

But I would like to say that board could use some coaching too, and they're going to have a meeting to talk about their functio in a couple, a couple, Thursdays from now.

Right.

And I was going to say, Patty, I remember a few years ago they had marriage counseling for the DPS board.

So, you know, I want to look nationally, internationally.

I continue to be frustrated with the on again, off again stuff in both Iran and Lebanon.

It, it it is disruptive to the entire world.

And if you believe it doesn't impact you immediately in your neighborhood, you're wrong.

And so we've got to get a handle on this.

And in these wars, it's frustrating.

And I'm Team USA at the World Cup.

Not a lot to say.

I think the man need to take some lessons from the women's team and learn to show up in big games, and try and break through what appears to be a cap for them in the round of 16.

Yeah.

Okay.

Amber.

Yeah.

The women have won quite a few.

Yeah.

My low is, actually the Piney River ranch, which is outside of Vail.

They've got they've not come to a lease agreement with Denver Water because Denver Water owns the land.

And so many people have been married there.

And there are so many memories that affect so many people across Colorado.

I know I've been there.

My brother got married there.

It's it is an incredible place.

And a lot of people go there and get engaged there have their own weddings there.

But they've they've started a petition online.

There's more than 5000 peopl that have signed it requesting, you know, more discussions around the lease.

I think there's a Denver Water Commission meeting coming up.

So I would encourage everyone to pay attention to that because that's a very meaningful spo to a lot of people in Colorado.

Okay.

All right.

Something good.

Patty, we did a story a couple weeks ago speaking of Denver Water, ho they stepped forward and helped Riverside Cemetery, which is all the plants are dying, but come up with a plan to make the cemeter look better without using water.

Okay, finding, uncovered gems.

If you get a chance please go to one of the concerts at the Botanic Garden.

I went to one last night and heard them.

Amazing grou from Greeley called the burros.

So that was my high point for the week.

Okay.

All right, the burros.

I'm going back to the World Cup.

Just broadly, I mean, it has been I'm a huge soccer fan and always have been.

But to host it here and Mexico and Canada to see the unity of people from around the world coming together and coming to also experience some of our cities and who Americans are, right.

We get so cynical in this industry, as we all know, about what this country is and where this country is it.

And I think people from across the world have come and and seen a lot of good in our communities.

They're having fun.

Yeah, they're drinking ranch, ranch dressing, eating, drinking.

Right.

It's dressing all right for something good.

Well, okay, so I'm going to say it because nobody else sai a Taylor and Travis got married.

This is like the biggest wedding.

And, I have a teenage daughter, clearly.

So this is why it was it was a topic in our household.

But I think that's a big deal.

But no pictures.

I don't have pictures.

So did it really happen?

Yes.

According to the Madison Square Garden, the sign outside jumbotron.

Yeah.

All right.

My high.

The heroes, the humility and the hope.

In the small town of Beulah, Colorado.

Since the Aspen Acre wildfire blew up, the 22 person volunteer fire department really rallied big time.

And some firefighters continue battling the flames, even though they had learned that their own homes have been destroyed.

They were afraid that they could lose the entire valley.

But their determination and dedication and love for Beulah helped them protect their in town.

The story is a reminder that a community' greatest strength is the people willing to serve it.

I also want to give a special shout out to Nine News reporter Mark Sallinger and his videographer, who, captured this story with such heart.

I highly recommend you check it out online.

As one firefighter sai in a small volunteer department, it's a family, and that family is my high of the week.

Thanks to my insider family.

To those of you at home who are watching or listening to our podcast, I'm Kyle Dyer, and we'll see you next week here on PBS 12.

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