Once an election recedes in the rear-view mirror – especially when races are decided by wide margins – the results take on an air of inevitability.

A few weeks ago, while the jury was still out on Colorado’s most contested races, no one yet knew whether the team that propelled Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis to the governor’s mansion was setting the standard for voter contact and organization, or was on its way to squandering a fortune.

Likewise, the bunch that ran State Treasurer Walker Stapleton’s gubernatorial campaign might have been waging a brilliant campaign in a tough year for Republicans, or simply burning through cash without a coherent message other than an angry plea to reject the other guy.

In hindsight, the Polis campaign steamrolled through a tumultuous year, keeping its eye on the prize – and wound up burying Stapleton by 10-1/2 percentage points as a Democratic-friendly blue wave swept the state.

But there was nothing pre-ordained about the outcome a year and a half ago, when the field of candidates for offices up and down the ballot began taking shape.

Again and again, candidates and events reached turning points that could have gone one way or the other before the campaigns lurched toward the choices faced last week by voters.

Before the dust settles and Election 2018 solidifies in memory, it’s worth revisiting some of the moments that stand out in what will surely go down as one of the bumpiest campaign seasons in recent years.

For a while, it looked as though the most salient characteristic of the election would be all the candidates jumping in and out of various races before the election year even dawned.

The jostling began just months after the 2016 election and continued until the primary ballot was set in April this year.

Early on, it looked like former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar would be the Democrat to beat for governor. But then, after Salazar announced he wouldn’t be running, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter joined former State Treasurer Cary Kennedy and former state Sen. Mike Johnston in what was shaping up to be a free-for-all.

Kennedy went on to bury the rough start, winning the caucuses and earning top-line on the primary ballot. But for a while, she was burdened with images of her campaign announcement, a video broadcast from the front seat of her car as she drove through her East Denver neighborhood, glancing at notes now and then.

Soon, Polis jumped in the race, shocking the Democratic field at the prospect of the tech millionaire self-funding his way to the nomination, like he did a decade earlier in a congressional primary.

Citing the fundraising challenge, Perlmutter dropped out and later announced he wanted a seventh term in Congress, which eventually sent the four Democrats who had been vying for that seat scattering. In the end, Polis bested second-place Kennedy in the primary by 20 points.

On the Republican side, Stapleton began raising money for his super PAC – taking a page from his cousin, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who honed the big-spending technique for his ill-fated and supremely expensive presidential run – and sat back for months as the cash poured in.

As the months rolled by, Republican George Brauchler, the district attorney who prosecuted the Aurora theater shooter, rolled along winning straw polls and endorsements – including one from Second Amendment champion and aging ’70s rocker Ted Nugent, who urged “all my gunloving, backstrap rockin real American sh**kicker BloodBrothers in Colorado” to heed Brauchler’s gubernatorial bid.

Wealthy Republican Victor Mitchell, an entrepreneur and former state lawmaker, began pouring cash into his own campaign – he eventually spent around $5 million – while alternately stiff-arming and embracing Donald Trump, creating a dynamic he would maintain through the primary.

After admitting he didn’t vote for the GOP nominee in the last presidential election, Mitchell began describing himself as Colorado’s version of Trump, possibly confusing the Republicans who were paying close attention to his campaign.

Shortly before Stapleton’s long-planned campaign launch in the fall, however, former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo started exploring a run, sending shivers throughout the state GOP and confounding Stapleton’s once-clear path to the nomination.

In the space of a few days last year in early November after Tancredo made official his third run for governor, Republican candidates in statewide races played a tense game of chicken crossed with musical chairs.

Attorney General Cynthia Coffman – long described as the only potential Republican gubernatorial candidate feared by Democrats – finally leaped from her re-election bid to the governor’s race. Soon after that, facing increasing evidence he couldn’t keep up with Stapleton’s fundraising, Brauchler took her place running for attorney general.

Just two months later, despite declaring he was on his way to winning the GOP nomination, Tancredo decided he couldn’t raise enough money to compete with Polis in the general election and sent the board scattering yet again by dropping out.

As the deadline for petitioning candidates approached, Stapleton threw another curve ball when he announced that the firm he’d paid a quarter of a million dollars to gather signatures hadn’t followed the rules. So instead, he would try to get on the ballot at the upcoming state assembly, introducing more last-minute turmoil into an already turbulent primary race.

Coffman sought to block Stapleton’s 11th hour Hail Mary, but state GOP officials allowed it, and he ultimately emerged with top-line designation from the assembly, and in the process kept her off the ballot.

But before that happened, one of the stranger episodes of the entire campaign transpired, one that deserves a last look before the ink dries on the history of an election chock full of twists, turns and downright odd developments.

On what would turn out to be the final day of her campaign, Coffman spent $8,000 to hire Irish tenor Anthony Kearns – one of the famous Irish Tenors – to sing “O’ America!” before her name was placed into nomination at the Republican state assembly in Boulder.

But after GOP officials refused to allow the performance to take place, Kearns observed the proceedings from a front-row seat at the Coors Event Center while a recording of his signature song played over loudspeakers.