Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the state of several races not yet decided as of Nov. 12.

With 83 of the General Assembly’s 100 seats up for grabs on Election Day 2024, the big question was whether Senate Democrats could secure a two-thirds majority and whether House Democrats could keep theirs.

The answers? No and no — as of Nov. 12.

Voters appear to have decided to keep things the way they are, with 23 seats held by Democrats in the state Senate, compared to 12 Republicans. However, two races are still close enough that they have not yet been called, including a surprise in Adams County.

In the House, with two races still too close to call and should those results hold, Democrats will have lost three seats and their supermajority.

Democrats currently hold 46 seats to the Republicans’ 19.

State Senate

As of Monday, Nov. 11, two Senate races are still close although well outside the margin required for an automatic recount. 

That includes Senate District 21, the Adams County seat held by Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet of Commerce City. She’s a Democrat appointed to her Senate seat in August 2023, when Sen. Dominick Moreno resigned to take a job with the administration of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

Based on unofficial results, Michaelson Jenet holds a lead of 1,387 votes over her Republican opponent, Fred Alfred, Jr.

In Senate District 12, the lead held by Rep. Marc Snyder, D-Manitou Springs, has shrunk to 1,030 votes over his Republican challenger, Stan VanderWerf, an El Paso County commissioner. 

Snyder held a three percentage point lead as of Nov. 7, but it’s been cut in half in the last four days. The redistricting commission rated this seat in 2021 as leaning Republican at 2.4%.

The race at the center of both parties’ efforts in the state Senate was District 5, an open seat representing seven counties in the central Western Slope.

The candidates were term-limited Rep. Marc Catlin of Montrose, who faced off against Democratic candidate Cole Buerger, a small business owner in Glenwood Springs.

Buerger raised nearly $143,000 for his campaign; Catlin raised just over $140,000. 

Independent expenditure committees, which by law cannot coordinate with candidates, did most of the talking with their spending, and it was relatively similar in terms of how much was spent for both candidates.

The Senate Majority Fund was the big spender on behalf of Catlin, with more than $2 million deployed in the month leading up to the election. 

Buerger’s candidacy was supported primarily by All Together Colorado, which spent close to $2 million in the final month of the campaign.

As of Monday, Nov. 11, Catlin’s lead has grown by another 1,000 votes, up to 3,570  over Buerger, based on unofficial results. Catlin won his home county of Montrose, as well as Delta and Hinsdale counties. Buerger took Eagle, his home county of Garfield, and Pitkin and Gunnison counties.

In Senate District 6, Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, sought to secure a second term to represent the 14 counties of the southwestern district that stretches 230 miles from the Utah state line east to Alamosa.

His Democratic opponent was Vivian Smotherman, a military veteran and farmer in Durango. 

Simpson handily won his reelection bid, defeating Smotherman by a margin of about 56% to 44%, based on unofficial results. Simpson won nine of the district’s counties, including Alamosa; Smotherman won five, including her home county of LaPlata.

Republicans took one back on Election Night: the Senate District 13 seat held by term-limited Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson. Priola switched parties two years ago, and Republicans have been waiting to take back the district that is primarily based in Weld County, with a small portion in Adams County. 

Scott Bright of Platteville, the Republican candidate, defeated Democrat Matt Johnston of Brighton. Unofficial results show Bright defeating Johnston by more than 13 percentage points.

Bright, a small business owner who helps run his family’s 25 child care centers, took the majority of the vote in both Weld and Adams counties.

While outgoing Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder said the notion of a supermajority was better as a fundraiser for Republicans than a goal for Democrats, there is one issue that could be at play with such superiority in numbers — repeal of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).

It’s been on the Democrats’ wish list for years, including through lawsuits filed by Democrats in an attempt to declare it unconstitutional that went on for more than a decade.

State House

As of the latest unofficial results on Nov. 11, two races are still too close to call, while election officials processed remaining uncounted ballots, including from overseas and military voters. County clerks have until Nov. 15 to count all ballots.

Over the weekend, three-term incumbent Rep. Mary Young, D-Greeley, conceded her House District 50 race to Republican Ryan Gonzalez. Young held a narrow lead on Election Night that evaporated over the days that followed. As of Monday, Gonzalez holds a 2 percentage point lead, or just over 500 votes.

Young won a close race in 2022 in a low-turnout election, in which she bested her Republican challenger by 330 votes but with a Libertarian candidate who took 615 votes. This year, it was a contest just between Young and Gonzalez.

The closest race in the state is now in House District 16, which is based in central and south Colorado Springs. As of last Thursday, first-term Rep. Stephanie Vigil held on to a 435-vote lead over her Republican challenger, Rebecca Keltie. Vigil’s lead also evaporated over the weekend; Keltie now leads by just 21 votes, well within the margin for an automatic recount.

In the open seat for House District 19, former Republican Rep. Dan Woog of Erie faced Jillaire McMillan of Longmont for the district that includes eastern Boulder County and south Weld County.

McMillan’s lead — at one point over 1,800 votes — also disappeared over the weekend; Woog now leads by 207 votes or 0.38% of the vote.

For the rest of the legislature, in both the House and Senate, voters kept things the way they are.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie of Dillon told a crowd of 600 at a Democratic watch party Tuesday night that voters believe “we are the right people to lead our state.”

The 2025 General Assembly will convene on Wednesday, Jan. 8. at 10 a.m. Gov. Jared Polis is expected to present his 7th State of the State address the following day.