We’ll never know. In a quick interview, off to the side of a get-out-the-vote rally in Denver Tuesday at lunchtime,  Gov. John Hickenlooper fielded a hypothetical about Democrats seizing the state Senate on Election Day.

Republicans, as it turned out, would retain their Senate majority.

With Democratic control of the legislature, Hickenlooper, a Democrat himself,  would have exercised more patience and guidance in the negotiations than he did the last time the left ran everything, in 2013 and 2014.

The 2013 session was a bruising march by Democrats, in partisan perceptions. They passed controversial gun control laws and civil unions, They attempted to repeal the state’s death penalty, until Hickenlooper signaled he wouldn’t support it. They passed the current voting system that sends a ballot to the home of every registered voter, which Republicans said would invite fraud.

Republicans and gun-rights supporters led a successful recall of state Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo in September 2013. Republicans then won the 18-17 Senate majority in 2014.

“I was young and inexperienced in state government,” the governor said. “I think I know how to navigate things a little better now, to keep a firm hand on the tiller.

“My filter on every issue is how does it affect small businesses, as long as we keep focus on helping small businesses.”