State Rep. Paul Rosenthal could lose his spot on the June primary ballot if Saturday’s county assembly results hold, but the Denver Democrat says he plans to persuade delegates over the next two weeks to send him back for a fourth term.

After Democratic delegates chosen at precinct caucuses voted Saturday at Denver and Arapahoe county assemblies, Rosenthal wound up with just 25 percent of the delegates headed for the House District 9 assembly, where it will take the support of at least 30 percent of the delegates to land on the primary ballot.

Rosenthal is facing primary challenges from veteran policy advocate Ashley Wheeland and social worker and educator Emily Sirota, who both out-performed the incumbent in Saturday’s voting – and both submitted nominating petitions earlier in March that could also qualify them for the primary ballot if it turns out they gathered 1,000 valid signatures from district Democrats. Rosenthal, however, didn’t circulate a petition, and the deadline for submitting them was last Tuesday.

Wheeland landed 47 percent of the delegates selected at the county assemblies, and Sirota got 28 percent. The delegates are scheduled to convene April 7 to designate candidates to the June 26 primary ballot for the heavily Democratic seat that covers southeast Denver and a small portion of neighboring Arapahoe County. There isn’t a Republican candidate for the district.

Candidates who qualify for the primary by petition just need 10 percent support from delegates if they also choose to go through assembly. It’s unknown whether Sirota and Wheeland’s petitions will be verified by the time the district assembly takes place.

Rosenthal told Colorado Politics late Saturday that he’ll take the next two weeks to make his case to the delegates, who aren’t bound to a candidate and can vote however they want at the district assembly.

“There’s a new wave of energy and enthusiasm in the Democratic Party, and with that there’s a wave of new folks coming into the process – people who don’t necessarily know me or my successful record at the Legislature,” he said. “Given that I’ve worked on a lot of legislation this session, I did not necessarily have the time to go door to door to speak with a lot of these new activists, which is exactly why I asked the (House) speaker to step down from the business committee, and possibly I should have stepped down earlier in order to have more time to present my progressive record to them.”

House Speaker Crisanta Duran approved Rosenthal’s request to step off the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee in one of several committee changes announced March 16.

“I look forward to another conversation with the delegates on April 7,” Rosenthal said Saturday. “Every vote is a new vote, as we know in the Legislature, and there were a number of activists who I’ve never met before because I couldn’t reach them at their door yet, so today was the first time I had met them. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will have a chance to chat some more.”

At the beginning of the session, Duran, a Denver Democrat, removed Rosenthal as vice chairman of the House Local Government committee. Duran made the move days after dismissing a formal complaint that alleged Rosenthal groped a campaign worker in 2012, saying the alleged misconduct took place before the lawmaker was first elected so was outside the scope of the General Assembly’s workplace harassment policy. Rosenthal continues to serve on the committee.