What we saw in this election was record-breaking corporate investment into reshaping Democratic primaries. And we know why: as Colorado has become a safe blue state, big corporations and the wealthy few know that they must invest in corporate-friendly Democrats in order to keep their interests centered at the state Capitol. For them, it’s just business as usual, with a bluer hue.

The good news is that money sure couldn’t buy them everything. While they certainly won a few races tonight, so did several of our community champions. In particular, Yara Zokaie in HD52 and Kathy Gebhardt for CD2 State Board of Education overcame huge corporate dark money spending against them to deliver powerful victories for our communities and our schools. And, in the race for SD28, which will likely go down as the most expensive state legislative primary in Colorado history with all of its corporate spending, community champion Rep. Mike Weissman appears to have won.

We’ve known all along that we won’t win every race we fight against the wealthy few – they’ve been buying our political system for years, so we know what they’re capable of. But tonight we proved that they won’t win every race either, no matter how much they spend. For our part, we plan to just keep fighting to elect community champions, all up and down Colorado’s ballot, this fall and in the years to come — no matter how much corporate spending may come against us.

— Wendy Howell, State Director of the Colorado Working Families Party