The 2022 Colorado gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2022. Incumbent Democratic Governor Jared Polis won election to a second term, defeating Republican University of Colorado regent Heidi Ganahl by a decisive margin. Ganahl conceded on election night. The primary election was held on June 28. Polis won two counties he lost in 2018: Grand and Las Animas.
Polis's 2022 victory marked the first time in American history that an openly gay politician was re-elected governor of a state. Having won more than 58% of the vote, Polis had the best performance for a re-elected Colorado governor since Bill Owens in 2002, the best for a Democrat since Roy Romer in 1990, and the highest raw vote total ever in a Colorado gubernatorial race.
Democratic assembly
Candidates
Nominated at assembly
- Jared Polis, incumbent governor
- Running mate: Dianne Primavera, incumbent lieutenant governor
Eliminated at assembly
Republican primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Heidi Ganahl, member of the Regents of the University of Colorado
- Running mate: Danny Moore, businessman
Eliminated in primary
- Greg Lopez, former mayor of Parker and former director of the Small Business Administration for Colorado; candidate for governor in 2018 and for U.S. Senate in 2016
Eliminated at convention
- Laurie Clark
- Darryl Gibbs, truck driver and U.S. Air Force veteran
- Jon Gray-Ginsberg
- Danielle Neuschwanger, realtor
- Jim Rundberg, U.S. Army veteran, independent candidate for governor in 2014, and Republican candidate for President of the United States in 2016
Declined
- Guy Benson, political pundit, Fox News contributor, and political editor for Townhall
- Ken Buck, U.S. representative from Colorado's 4th congressional district, former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, and nominee for U.S. Senate in 2010
- Bill Owens, former governor of Colorado (endorsed Ganahl)
American Constitution convention
Candidates
Nominee
- Danielle Neuschwanger, realtor (previously ran for Republican nomination)
- Running mate: Darryl Gibbs, truck driver and U.S. Air Force veteran (previously ran for Republican nomination)
General election
Endorsements
Jared Polis (D)
Heidi Ganahl (R)
Polling
Aggregate polls
Graphical summary
Results
By county
Despite losing the state, Ganahl won 36 of 64 counties.
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Grand (largest city: Granby)
- Las Animas (largest city: Trinidad)
By congressional district
Polis won six of eight congressional districts, including one that elected a Republican.
Analysis
Incumbent governor Jared Polis easily won re-election by 19.3%, a margin much larger than aggregate polling predicted. Polis piled up massive margins in the heavily populous North Central Colorado Urban Area, which contains the state capital Denver plus its surrounding suburbs Aurora, Thornton, Lakewood, and Broomfield; in addition to other major cities Boulder and Fort Collins, home to the University of Colorado and Colorado State University respectively. Outside the Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins region, Polis also won a long row of counties along the Rocky Mountains from Routt in the north to La Plata in the south, which contains a number of liberal leaning ski resort towns like Telluride, Aspen, and Steamboat Springs. In Southern Colorado, a region historically known for coal mining, and home to a sizable Hispanic population, Polis managed to halt the decline in support for Democrats that had been taking place here since the mid-2010s in both state and federal races. Polis also won the relatively conservative city of Colorado Springs, the first Democrat to do so in recent history, along with greatly increasing his vote share in conservative-leaning urban counties compared to 2018. Polis's definitive victory likely helped other Democrats down the ballot to win their races or win them by comfortable margins, allowing Democrats to keep control of the state government.
Heidi Ganahl did best in the traditionally rural areas of Colorado bordering Kansas in the east, Utah in the west, and several larger counties including Weld (Greeley), Douglas (Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch), and El Paso (Colorado Springs). In the latter two counties, Ganahl significantly underperformed previous Republican nominees in these traditionally conservative urban counties, winning Douglas by 0.38% and El Paso by 3.97%, the closest either county had come to voting Democratic since 1994 and 1982 respectively. Ganahl failed to appeal to the large unaffiliated bloc of state voters along with political moderates. During her campaign, she highlighted her opposition to abortion (at odds with most Colorado voters), utilized incendiary right-wing rhetoric in regards to several social and cultural issues, and courted figures involved with pushing conspiracy theories about elections.
Prior to the election, an article by Daniel Strain from the University of Colorado reported that 71% of Colorado voters said their state's elections will be conducted "fairly and accurately", while 54% said the same for other elections across the United States. 53% of voters also disapproved of the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade. 63% of voters said Joe Biden won the 2020 election, although Biden had a 52% disapproval among Centennial State voters compared to 39% who approved of him.
Despite Biden's low approval, a Marist poll conducted in October found that amongst 1,221 Colorado adults, Governor Polis had a 50% approval, while Ganahl suffered from low name recognition, with 42% having either never heard of her or were unsure how to rate her. The same poll also found that 34% of voters were most concerned about inflation, followed by preserving democracy at 29%, abortion at 16%, crime at 7%, followed by healthcare and immigration at 6% each.