To catch you up, campaign committees from this 2026 election cycle already collected and shoveled out a lot of cash: $102.64 million. That’s contributions in all forms — dollars, in kind, loans, etc. — from December 2024 to now. Total expenditures just for advertising amount to $32.94 million. More to come for the general election.

Did you get any money’s worth? There’s nothing like campaign season to make you not like campaigns, and too often, candidates. The most enamoring aspect of this month’s primary results is voters rebelled against most of the candidates who spent most of the money.

If the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court won’t deal with Citizen’s United, the ruling that allows any corporation or similar entity to exercise political speech without telling any of us who’s doing the talking, then the remedy is to vote against the candidates who don’t loudly object to that “dark” money. Democrats voted big time against that money.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet paid the price. Rocky Mountain Way (RMW) was an independent expenditure committee supporting Bennet for governor. It collected $11.41 million and spent $10.91 million, about 10% of the total collected this cycle. Bennet had no control over how the committee operated or how it advertised his campaign. He can see the names of those people and associations who donated. So, he knows former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York pitched $4 million to get him elected, no return favors required.

If he knew the voter mood better on how to win his primary, he would have yelled loud and clear to RMW donors: “Stop pitching money to Rocky Mountain Way. I can raise my own money.” He would have asserted, “I don’t want your money and you don’t represent me.” He could have announced to voters, “Pay no attention to that Rocky Mountain Way committee behind the curtain!”

Instead, the money flowed, including from Bloomberg and lots more from New York City and other eastern states. From the minute the news became public of Bloomberg’s haughty munificence, Bennet lost the election. He was already tagged as the man from do-nothing Washington, DC. Now he was also the watercarrier for wealthy New York City elites pushing nonsense against a candidate in his own party.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette landed in the same cruise ship. Bennet and DeGette were establishment candidates playing the Citizen’s United money game when Colorado’s Democrats and D-leaning unaffiliateds want an unadulterated playing field. U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper is lucky he didn’t get tossed off the ship. He only won because state Sen. Julie Gonzales got in the race too late.

Money was one reason this primary was different from any recent others. Another was proximity to establishment politics. President Donald Trump blew up the establishment with his 2024 win. He’s proudly taken the worst elements of establishment politics and made them worse.

Victor Marx, winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary, will try to do the same in Colorado. He came out of nowhere politically but lives in El Paso County where he had history with Focus on the Family. This experience contrasts with state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, florist, dairy farmer, Weld County commissioner, and dog-on-a-bone budget rottweiler on the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee. Kirkmeyer won in Weld County, led in the Front Range, but was trounced by Western Slope voters, especially in Mesa County.

The farther from the Capitol Republican and R-leaning unaffiliated voters lived, the more vehemently they voted against Kirkmeyer. Ironically, Kirkmeyer certainly knows more about Western Slope agriculture problems than Marx and has protected Coloradans as much as she could from excessive state spending. No matter, the Western Slope, along with Marx, wants to explode how politics is done at the Capitol.

For other reasons, everyday Democrats and D-leaning unaffiliateds are done with the establishment. They are tired of the incrementalism that’s left too many Coloradans, especially young people, unable to launch their careers, relationships, hopes and dreams.

Denver voters especially disliked Denver hometown establishment candidate Bennet, and his loss there probably compromised DeGette’s run. Bennet went down in every Denver neighborhood except for Central Park, the old Stapleton airport acreage. Why? Here’s some speculation: Young voters don’t like his Washington links and money. But young voters weren’t enough to create the Denver smackdown. Bennet also lost older voters, especially women, who no doubt remembered his time as leader of Denver Public Schools.

The senator reminded voters often he was superintendent of DPS. It was that role that launched him into his Senate seat. But for much of Denver, his time at DPS led to school closings, a breakdown between teachers and administration, the rapid advance of charter schools as education “reform,” and general chaos. Bennet was the business community’s superintendent, an oops today.

The Republican Party, according to Kirkmeyer, is at death’s door. Democrats and D-leaning unaffiliateds, younger and older, seek more change than the party will probably give. Young Ds want affordable health care, housing and decent-paying jobs. They don’t want the environment abused. Older voters, especially D women who voted voluminously, want the same for their adult children and young grandchildren.

In 2028, these voters will hold 2026 office holders to account.

Paula Noonan owns CapitolCommons.ai, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.