Sen. Michael Bennet has been elected to his third full term as Colorado’s senior senator, according to three major networks, defeating Republican rival Joe O’Dea in a tighter-than-expected race.
Bennet was not originally considered a vulnerable candidate in a state that has grown increasingly blue in recent cycles. Unprecedentedly popular in the state’s mountain and rural counties, Bennet initially outpolled O’Dea by double digits among likely Colorado voters, who backed President Joe Biden in the 2020 election by nearly 14 points.
But a challenging national environment for Democratic incumbents, exacerbated by Biden’s low approval ratings, reinvigorated Colorado’s historical reputation as a swing state in the closing weeks of the campaign.
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Bennet, never considered a particularly magnetic campaigner by the Colorado political establishment, ran a race that focused on the most popular aspects of Biden’s agenda, including reimplementing the $3,600 child tax credit for families, while distancing himself from Biden’s more divisive policies, including the forgiveness of up to $20,000 in student loan debt.
“I don’t think he should’ve done it the way he did it,” Bennet said in his final debate against O’Dea in October. “It wasn’t nearly what I thought they should do, which is do it for the people that need it the most—the poorest people in our country that have that debt.”
The Democrat also sought to cast O’Dea, a construction magnate with no public-sector experience who once described himself as “a contractor, not a politician,” as a two-time supporter of former President Donald Trump who would serve the interests of the far-right wing of the Republican Party. O’Dea, for his part, tried to distance himself from the former president, saying that he was “actively” opposed to Trump seeking the party’s nomination in 2024.
But that position caused a rift with the former president, who in the closing weeks of the campaign, slammed O’Dea and urged his supporters in Colorado not to vote for him.
"MAGA doesn't vote for stupid people with big mouths," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
