What Just Happened: Election Results From Colorado Ballot Measures to Democratic Defeat

Waking up this morning to a snow-covered Denver, I reflected on last night’s events with a surreal platitude one reserves for dreams. I felt a strange disconnectedness from the world around me, a creeping apathetic hedonism that will likely propel me through the next several months. My co-workers at my day job, a High School within the Denver Public School system, shared both my anxiety and apathy for the state of things.

Last night, Donald Trump overwhelmingly won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. And before people go pointing fingers, though I’m sure this has already started, not a single third-party candidate won any Electoral College votes. Whether they were in a swing state or a blue strong-hold like Colorado, third-party voters could not have saved Harris from this devastating loss.

Republicans are also projected to take a majority in the Senate, flipping seats in West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana. The House race is still too close to call.

In Colorado, progressives passed Amendment 79 and Amendment J, codifying the rights to same-sex marriage and abortion in the state’s constitution. Voters also passed taxes on sports betting and firearm sales.

The state’s justice system will see changes starting in 2025, with voters passing measures that remove the right to bail in case of first-degree murder and requiring persons convicted of certain violent crimes to serve more of their sentence before being eligible for parole.

Colorado voters also chose to keep money out of politics by rejecting Kent Thriy’s Proposition 131 to change Colorado elections to open primaries and switch to ranked-choice voting. Shrouded in popular progressive election reform, Prop 131 would have transformed Colorado’s primaries into a pay-to-play format, allowing politically active billionaires like Thiry to easily throw their hat in the ring with little popular support.

Yellow Scene covered Thiry’s marred past in politics and various legal battles extensively earlier this year.

Though several bomb threats were made to polling stations in swing states, none of these threats proved credible, and voting resumed at all locations after authorities had cleared the sites as safe. Democrats online have begun, ironically, making claims of election fraud, which, as of right now, are completely unfounded.

While all of the votes have yet to be counted, several credible publications have called the 2024 Presidential Election in favor of Trump, with him winning in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris is expected to concede Wednesday afternoon.

In the face of a second Trump presidency, community connections and mutual aid will be the path to getting through an instable future. In the meantime, Yellow Scene will stay dedicated to speaking truth to power and providing the Front Range with invaluable fact-based journalism.