Voters last night embraced major spending requests proposed by state and local officials, as well as picked their next set of municipal and school board leaders.

All told, Democrats won big.

Here are the key takeaways.

DEMOCRATS ARE ENERGIZED

Candidates and issues supported by Democrats won on Tuesday, when voters embraced statewide and local ballot questions endorsed by the party, even as they rejected Republican candidates in key municipal and school district elections. Colorado’s blue wave had echoed results across the country, from high-profile governors’ races and statewide contests to down-ballot elections that saw Democrats claim bigger-than-expected wins in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maine and Mississippi.

In Colorado, Democrats and candidates and issues supported by the party practically swept the table, ousting incumbents to take the majority on the Aurora City Council, including Danielle Jurinsky, and the Douglas County School Board, and winning mayoral races in Centennial and Westminster. In suburban Jefferson County, candidates backed by the teachers’ union won all the races.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE PUBLIC’S APPETITE FOR A TAX HIKE

Colorado voters showed an appetite for a tax hike, which could play into a potential major fight next year over keeping or restructuring income tax rates. A coalition is pushing to eliminate Colorado’s flat tax rate in favor of a graduated one and, at the same time, raise billions of dollars by raising taxes on new brackets, while cutting them for individuals at the lower end of the proposed spectrum.

Last night, voters approved a pair of referenda to raise taxes on residents earning more than $300,000 to bolster funding for free school lunches and augment the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. The difference, of course, is that last night’s ballot measures are geared toward a specific spending for a specific program – free meals for all K-12 students, while adopting a graduated income tax rate is a much bigger question.

PROGRESSIVES SECURE DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD

Douglas County’s school board has swung back and forth in recent years between conservative and progressive majorities, and, on Tuesday, the latter prevailed. All four candidates endorsed by the county’s Democratic Party — Kyrzia Parker, Tony Ryan, Clark Callahan and Kelly Denzler — held leads over Republicans Matthew Smith, Keaton Gambill, Deborah Kramer and Stephen Vail, respectively.

Tuesday night’s returns are a virtual mirror image of the results four years ago, in the first off-year election of the Biden administration, when Republicans and GOP-backed candidates swept the same Aurora and Douglas County races that Democrats won this year.

LITTLETON BALKS AT ‘DENSITY’

Littleton voters favored a ballot measure that disallows multiplexes and similar types of housing in single-family home neighborhoods. At issue is whether to alter the city’s charter to disallow development of multiplex homes – like duplexes, triplexes and quadraplexes – in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes, part of a larger push for “density” in metro Denver.

Back in January, Littleton councilmembers considered an ordinance allowing duplexes, multiplexes, triplexes and ADU’s within single-family zoned neighborhoods. Homeowners, in response, pushed back on the city, resulting in the council indefinitely postponing the ordinance.

Fueling that policy change is the idea of “density,” embraced by many state and local officials as a cure to housing, homelessness and transportation woes. It’s an idea that has permeated policymaking at the state Capitol, where lawmakers are pushing for, among other policies, housing clusters close to transit.

“This is about neighborhoods and homes and what you want your neighborhoods to be like in the future,” Mark Harris, a spokesperson for Rooted in Littleton, said after the ballot measure took an early and commanding lead, maintaining that 3A is not a partisan issue. Rooted in Littleton had put 3A on the ballot.

Reporters Ernest Luning, Sage Kelley and Luige del Puerto contributed to this article.