State Sen. Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat, on Wednesday officially launched his campaign for the 7th Congressional District seat held by U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who is running for governor in next year’s election.

“My passion is helping people,” Moreno, 32, says in a video announcing his bid. “Right now, our country is headed down the wrong path – every day a new controversy, a new bad policy. I miss the days when our leaders inspired us to tackle big issues, when our politics were still about helping others.”

Moreno joins Lakewood Democrats state Sen. Andy Kerr and House Majority Whip Brittany Pettersen in a primary race for the suburban swing seat Democrat Perlmutter, a former state senator, has won six times since 2006.

The district wraps around the west and north of Denver, including western Adams County and most of the denser-populated areas of Jefferson County. Democrats account for 34.5 percent of active registered voters, well ahead of the 26.3 percent registered Republican but lagging unaffiliated voters, who make up 37.3 percent.

Moreno, who was elected to the Commerce City Council when he was 24 years old, lives just a block from the house where he grew up. “Super convenient if you’re still a bachelor, like I am, you can go home for home-cooked meals all the time,” he said with a chuckle in a recent interview.

He graduated as class valedictorian from Adams City High School and won a Daniels Fund scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

After returning home, Moreno became the youngest official ever elected to the Commerce City Council and then served two terms in the Colorado House of Representatives before a successful run last year for the Adams County Senate District 21 seat left open when former state Sen. Jessie Ulibarri, D-Commerce City, a close Moreno ally, declined to seek reelection. Moreno served as assistant majority leader during his last two years in the House and this session sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

Moreno has said he’s passionate about civil rights, education and health care. He points to numerous legislative accomplishments, including sponsoring legislation to provide breakfast for students at all low-income schools in the state; making sure data centers and their hundreds of jobs stay in Colorado; and working to balance the state’s $26.8 billion budget while preserving the senior “homestead” property tax exemption.

Recalling his decision to run for city council at age 24, Moreno said he thought, “You know what, the success I’ve had in my life to date is not my own. It came from the people in the community who supported me – my teachers, my parents. And why not use this amazing education I was able to get right at home?”

Moreno said he designed his campaign flier on Microsoft Word and printed copies at Kinko’s – in black and white because he couldn’t afford color. “Universally,” he recalled, “people said the same thing: ‘You don’t have the most experience, but we know you. You grew up here, and we admire the you, in some small way, are trying to pay back everything that you were given growing up.'”

The National Republican Congressional Committee put Perlmutter’s district on its target list earlier this year, although Democrats say the district isn’t nearly as competitive as it was when its boundaries were first drawn.

Perlmutter has won the 7th Congressional District seat by double digits every time he’s been on the ballot, with margins ranging from 10 points in 2014 against challenger Don Ytterberg, who chaired the Jefferson County GOP before and after his congressional run, to 27 points in 2008 against political novice John Lerew. His other Republican opponents – Rick O’Donnell, Ryan Frazier, Joe Coors and George Athanasopoulos, in sequential order – each lagged Perlmutter by around a dozen points.

A 2018 Republican candidate for the district has yet to emerge, although GOP insiders say Jefferson County Commissioner Libby Szabo, a former Assistant House Minority leader from Arvada, is a possible candidate and Ytterberg has said he’s considering another run.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com