(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Interesting Week. A Colorado State Open Thread. 7/6/2026 [1] ['Dan K', 'Mikey Weinstein', 'Matt Z'] Date: 2026-07-06 I was hoping for a photo of Forester Bob and his very popular cat Narvik, but Narvik seems to be very camera and public shy, spending most of his visit under the bed in the guest room. He has even been staying away from his wanna-be girlfriend Bella, my Siamese cat who is certainly not shy in showing her interest in Narvik. She will do whatever it takes to put herself in front of him, including dashing into the room whenever there’s the slimmest opening in the door, putting her paw under the door, and if she does manage to get into the room, she will stalk Narvik almost to the point of throwing herself on top of him. She follows Bob around so that she can she can see any opportunities for romance. Now, I find her a very beautiful cat, but I’m not a male cat. I’m sure Narvik has no shortage of suitors and he must feel like a movie star with plenty of girls, girls, girls constantly chasing him wherever he goes. Lucky guy. ColoTim By the way, if that picture turns out like it does in the preview, all stretched top to bottom, with half her head missing, it’s the editor’s fault, and not mine. It looks fine in the file composer. Anyway, let’s get on to the stories. Did your candidates win last Tuesday evening? I was surprised, as the pundits were, that Diana DeGette was bounced from her seat and not by a minimum of votes. The caucus wasn’t kidding when it nearly kept her off the ballot. I sincerely am impressed with Melat Kiros now that I have heard her speak and I hope that she’s up for the moment of being the next Representative from HD1. I know there’s no way I would have been at 29, 39, 49 or 59. I also hope it’s not just a one-and-done tenure. I hope she’s able to serve multiple terms and be a real voice for her constituents, especially the younger constituents who haven’t been served in Congress or anywhere else for that matter. What are your reactions? I did vote for Phil Weiser. I haven’t been a fan of Michael Bennet at any level of politics, and I wouldn’t mind if he decided to spend more time with his family at this point of his career so that Governor Weiser could appoint a better Senator. Yes, I know Senator Bennet has seniority, but I’ve only rarely been impressed by his oratory or his way of speaking out for Colorado, and that goes too for the guy who put him into office, John HIckenlooper. I think Colorado could do better. But yes, I did vote for Senator Hickenlooper because I don’t know anything about Hickenlooper’s challenger in this election and I didn’t want to take a chance on a complete unknown. That she came so close in this election should give Hickenlooper reason to come out and actually be concerned. And Jena Griswold couldn’t manage 50%. If her three opponents had coalesced behind one candidate, any of whom had all the experience she lacked, maybe we could have had a real, experienced lawyer running for the AG’s office against the Republican candidate. Sure she has name recognition, but it’s not always for good things. Your thoughts? I was impressed with Manny Rutinel’s victory margin. Considering the amount of mud being slung between the candidates, I expected a closer race for the Democratic side in CD8. I am glad it wasn’t as close. I didn’t pay much attention to the race between Shannon Bird and Mr. Rutinel, but now I will because this will be a hard-fought and very important race because I expect this to be close and important in determining the balance of the House of Representatives. To that end, I’d like the folks in HD8 to pay special attention to this next part. We wound up canceling the meetup for yesterday. We had no RSVP’s and though we likely would have had a small gathering, we were competing with the holiday weekend, we were doing this on short notice and we want to do this right. In the past, when we had the Denver area meet-ups, we’ve given people more notice and we’ve had them either in a restaurant or at a house that was easy for people to get to. We also planned it so that we could have some politicians or members of their staff for some of the meet-ups, especially at house parties, so they could mingle and talk with constituents, perhaps get some donations, but also exchange ideas about issues. When I had them at my house I usually had a state senator, a state representative and a Denver city council member who arranged their schedule to come. I’d like to do the same for a meetup at Luna’s minion place, which happens to be in CD8. We can schedule this for late August or in October (for scheduling reasons, at the moment, September is out for me but it doesn’t have to be out for the group if you want it then). The election will be heating up then, you’ll have time to plan, we can issue invitations to the candidates at various levels, and even if you’re not in CD8 (or even if you have candidates in other districts like state house or senate districts that might like to come and meet progressives), we can see what we can do to get Kosacks with candidates. Please put your thoughts down below and in future diaries we can explore. We’ll have some polls when I have more time and can put them up. Until then, the floor is yours… [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/6/800066180/community/interesting-week-a-colorado-state-open-thread-7-6-2026/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/