Students are reacting to the finalized results for the senatorial and gubernatorial elections, as well as for the outcomes for Amendments 60, 61 and Proposition 101.
The U.S. Senate and gubernatorial appointments and the rejection of Amendments 60, 61 and Proposition 101 are likely to affect CU students financially for years to come.
Though his opponent Ken Buck has not given up his position in the race yet, Democrat Incumbent Michael Bennet has been confirmed as the Colorado representative for the U.S. Senate.
With almost 90 percent of the votes in, Bennet was beating Republican challenger Ken Buck by about 6,400 votes out of the nearly 1.6 million that were cast. Buck’s campaign maintains that there are still provision ballots to be counted.
The Democratic wins continued with Mayor John Hickenlooper taking the gubernatorial seat. In Boulder county Hickenlooper won by a margin of 70 percent.
In the races for CU regents seats Republican Regent-at-Large Steve Bosley will keep his seat with 51.1 percent of the vote and 95 percent of precincts reporting, beating out Democratic candidate and CU professor Melissa Hart.
In District 1 Democrat Michael Carrigan beat out Republican nominee Alex Maller in a landslide, winning 69.5 percent of the vote with 98 percent of precincts reporting. In District 3 Republican Sue Sharkey won by a landslide with 63.1 percent of the vote compared to Democratic nominee Robert Bishop-Cotner who only managed 36.8 percent of the vote with 91 percent of precincts reporting.
According to election results, Amendments 60 and 61 as well as Proposition 101 were defeated by a wide margin with 75 percent of voters turning down Amendment 60, 73 percent voting no against 61 and 68 percent voting no against Proposition 101.
Both Amendment 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 are all tax-cutting measures that would have potentially caused problems for state and education funding.
Kate McLachlan, a 21-year-old senior linguistics major, said that she believes voting and being involved is important because it affects everyone.
“I voted for Bennet, Hickenlooper and Polis,” McLachlan said. “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. I feel like students are involved but there is always room to be more involved.”
Steffen Myers, a 19-year-old freshman fine arts major, said that he did not get a chance to vote but that voting is significant.
“Yes, it [voting] is important,” Myers said. “It’s important to vote to make sure that we have a say in who is elected.”
Robert Cotton, a 20-year-old junior environmental studies and geography double-major, said that he is happy Bennet won.
“I’m glad that Bennet won over Buck,” Cotton said. “I think he’ll be better for school funding and higher education in general than Buck would.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Alex Lemley at Alexandria.lemley@colorado.edu.
