Colorado maintained its customary blue tint in Tuesday’s election, voting for the Democrats in statewide races and leaving the dominant party with majorities in the General Assembly and the state’s congressional delegation.

For the fifth consecutive election, the state’s electorate assigned Colorado’s electoral votes to the Democratic presidential ticket by a convincing margin, confirming the state’s recent shit to solid blue status.

Down the ballot, Democratic-leaning districts endorsed Democrats and Republican-leaning districts tapped GOP candidates, even in hotly contested races, suggesting that voters’ partisan identities outweigh even the most vigorous attempts to sway votes across the aisle.

Asked to decide on a cavalcade of ballot measures, however, voters made less predictable picks, approving progressive and conservative measures alike, while simultaneously rejecting proposals from both sides.

As the dust settles, here are some overnight takeaways on an election nearly everyone warned could have been the most consequential vote in memory.

The more things change …

Even as Donald Trump won a second, non-consecutive term, Colorado voters woke up Wednesday in the same state they knew the night before — with Democrats in control of every statewide elected office, both chambers of the legislature and what appeared to be seven of the state’s 10 members of Congress, including both senators and five of eight House members.

The state’s voters passed on the chance to shake things up, choosing instead to maintain the status quo across the board.

Across Colorado, it looks like every congressional incumbent who sought reelection won another term, with nearly the same outcome among state lawmakers, with a single legislator — state Rep. Mary Young, D-Greeley — trailing her challenger, Republican Ryan Gonzalez, by a few dozen votes in unofficial results.

The pair of statewide races on the ballot this year went the way they’ve gone for the better part of the past decade. Democratic White House nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz carried the state by 11.5 points, just 2 points less than Joe Biden’s 13.5-point high-water margin over Trump in Colorado four years ago.

Democrat Elliott Hood defeated Republican Eric Rinard by more than 6 points in the other contest that appeared on every ballot, for the at-large seat on the University of Colorado Board of Regents. Hood’s win maintained the Democrats’ winning streak in statewide races, in place since 2018.

Lauren Boebert’s district switch paid off

One of the congressional incumbents who won a return ticket to Washington took an unprecedented, roundabout route. In the end, however, Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s decision to ditch the Western Slope for redder pastures on the other side of the Continental Divide proved to be the right one.

Faced with a rematch against the Democrat who came within 546 votes of beating her two years ago — and in the wake of a long-running scandal surrounding her antics in a Denver auditorium — Boebert feared that her near-loss in the 3rd Congressional District spelled trouble this year. So, she tried something no Colorado member of Congress had every done and moved into a new district — the 4th Congressional District, left open after Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck said he wouldn’t seek another term.

The only Colorado Republican with a national profile, Boebert shrugged off criticism that she was carpetbagging and managed to navigate a crowded primary full of local Republicans who wanted to be Buck’s successor.

On Election Day, Boebert proved the naysayers and skeptics wrong, winning a third term by about 10 points over Democrat Trisha Calvarese, though it was closer than the average 24-point margins Buck enjoyed in his two most recent wins.

Overwhelming money didn’t make the difference

After winning her own primary, Calvarese swamped Boebert’s fundraising this summer and fall, but even out-spending the Republican by 10-1 on a series of brutal attack ads didn’t swing the outcome for the Democrat.

The same turned out to be true in Boebert’s old district, where Adam Frisch, the Democrat who blasted fundraising records in his bid for a rematch, bulldozed Republican Jeff Hurd on the air and on the ground but still fell short on election night.

Like Boebert in the 4th CD, Hurd underperformed the 3rd CD’s historic Republican margins, but a win is a win, and by Wednesday morning he led Frisch by about 3 points — half the margin Boebert racked up in her first run in the district in 2020. Frisch conceded to Hurd later that day.

Kent Thiry, the wealthy backer of Proposition 131, learned the same lesson when the statewide ballot measure went down in flames, even though its supporters burned through millions of dollars in an attempt to rebuild Colorado’s election system from the ground up.

With hardly any funding in opposition, Thiry’s proposal to establish a type of jungle primary and a ranked-choice general election lost by 10 points.

It helps to have a functioning state party

The state Republican Party’s internal turmoil left most of the GOP’s nominees to fend for themselves, as two warring factions spent months battling it out in court and in competing meetings over control of the party apparatus.

By the time ballots went out in early October, state GOP Chairman Dave Williams had won in court and kept his grip on the party. Still, after spending heavily to defend his position — and diverting attention from things like assembling a statewide get-out-the-vote campaign — there wasn’t much gas in the tank to help push the party’s candidates across the finish line.

One relic of the tug-of-war showed up in voters’ mailboxes in the two most competitive congressional races — Hurd’s bid in the 3rd CD and state Rep. Gabe Evans’ attempt to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the swingy 8th Congressional District. After endorsing Williams’ foes in the intraparty fight, national Republicans routed money through the Arizona GOP to pay for a series of mailers into Hurd’s and Evans’ districts in order to get more favorable postal rates.

The L factor fizzled

Heading into the election year, Williams worked out a deal with the state’s Libertarian Party to help boost GOP candidates in tight races. Under the agreement, unveiled to much fanfare, the Libertarians would step aside if the Republican candidate signed a pledge to adhere to certain principles, ostensibly to avoid acting as spoilers by drawing conservative votes.

Only a few Republican candidates took the bait, however, and in nearly every case, it didn’t make a difference.

Hurd, who appears to have won his competitive congressional race, declined to sign, leaving Libertarian James Wiley on the 3rd CD ballot, but Wiley’s 2.5% of the vote didn’t cost Hurd the election.

In the 8th CD, Libertarian Eric Joss dropped out and endorsed Evans after the Republican signed a modified version of the pledge, but that move didn’t prevent Caraveo from winning a second term.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect vote totals posted through noon on Nov. 7.