In less than a week, Colorado voters will have spoken.

Not long after polls close on the state’s primary election at 7 p.m. on June 25 — in most cases, within hours — this year’s crop of Republican and Democratic candidates will know which are advancing to 2024 general election, surely thanks to the wisdom of the voters, and which must accept defeat, no doubt at the hands of Colorado’s notoriously fickle electorate.

And, like magic, the often bitter intra-party warfare that’s consumed the state’s political class since the last election will give way to an equally vigorous fall campaign, hurtling voters toward another set of decisions that will be rightly dubbed the most important election of their lifetime.

Within days, what’s likely to rank among Colorado’s most surprise-filled primary elections in recent memory will recede into the annals of history, with some wounds likely to fester but most wrapped under a bandage of party unity.

It’s been a doozy.

Only six months ago, Colorado’s uncluttered slate of upcoming primaries looked to be fairly routine.

In a year with just a single statewide contest on the ballot — the at-large University of Colorado regent seat, with nary a U.S. Senate seat or governor’s race in sight — the battle for the White House, already shaping up to feature incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and the incumbent he beat four years earlier, Republican Donald Trump, threatened to suck all the oxygen from the state’s campaign-o-sphere, leaving down-ballot candidates gasping for attention.

That isn’t how things turned out.

Biden and Trump got their rematch, but as the calendar turned to 2024, all three of Colorado’s Republican emissaries to Washington — members of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, the last outpost of power for a party in a state that’s shifted dramatically toward the Democrats in recent elections — hauled out their trusty wrenches and proceeded to throw them under the electoral apple cart.

Ken Buck teed things up last fall when the five-term lawmaker announced he wasn’t running for reelection in the 4th Congressional District, the state’s most solidly Republican seat. That set off a scurry of Republicans — and a couple of Democrats — vying for the rare chance at an open seat, but it wasn’t until just before the end of the year that the ground shifted.

That’s when the Western Slope’s Lauren Boebert, the state’s most prominent Republican, announced she was ditching the 3rd Congressional District — after barely winning a second term in the last election — and would seek a return trip to DC from Buck’s district, which roughly covers the eastern half of the state. Instead of clearing the field, however, Boebert’s move was greeted with catcalls branding her a “carpetbagger,” as more Republicans joined the fray. At the same time, an equally crowded GOP primary took shape in the district she’d abandoned.

Days after Boebert’s bombshell, Doug Lamborn dropped a surprise of his own, declaring he wouldn’t seek a 10th term in the El Paso County-based 5th Congressional District, the only district in the state that’s never elected a Democrat. A handful of Republicans who’d been awaiting an opening quickly launched campaigns, including state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who failed to unseat Lamborn in the 2022 primary.

A couple of months later, Buck introduced another, unprecedented variable into an already twisty election year by announcing his imminent resignation from Congress. That teed up a special election for only the second time in state history to fill the remainder of his term. Thanks to Buck’s meticulously timed departure, the vacancy vote would share the ballot with the primary election.

For the first time in the modern era, every Democratic member of Colorado’s U.S. House delegation would be seeking reelection without a primary to get past, while every Republican-held district would be up for grabs.

Throw in the state Republican Party’s unprecedented decision this year to take sides in contested primaries — including backing Boebert and Williams, with the latter move drawing howls of complaints from Republicans that the party boss has unfairly used the GOP’s pulpit to boost his own candidacy — and it’s been a primary season like no other.

Down-ballot, a handful of legislative primaries have likewise taken center-stage, as both parties sort out how far left or right, respectively, their statehouse contingent will lean. A couple of district attorney primaries for open seats — in Denver’s heavily Democratic 2nd Judicial District and the newly created 23rd Judicial District, centered around reliably Republican Douglas County — are also in the spotlight.

As of this writing, it remains to be seen whether this year’s primary will yield as many surprising results as the twisty, turn-filled months leading up to the vote. While elections usually tend to turn out in line with expectations — as the songbook standard puts it, “The fundamental things apply, as time goes by” — there’s still plenty of room for primary night jolts.

Given this year’s topsy-turvy primary campaigns and Colorado’s panoply of precedents, it’d almost be more of a surprise if there weren’t a few more in store.

Here’s a look back at a half dozen recent primary election stunners — unforeseen developments that spun heads and left jaws dropped.

Biggest Upset: Lauren Boebert unseats entrenched incumbent

Already a minor celebrity in some circles as the owner of a gun-themed restaurant in Rifle, Boebert burst on the political scene in 2020, parlaying a confrontation over the Second Amendment with a Democratic presidential candidate into a feisty primary challenge that took five-term U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton by surprise. Claiming the mantle of Trump — who had already endorsed Tipton — Boebert accomplished what no Colorado politician had done in nearly five decades when she defeated an incumbent in a congressional primary.

Most Pungent Introduction: Alex Walker rains down excrement

Under the theory that it would take a candidate as bold and provocative as Boebert to dislodge the incumbent in her 2022 run for a second term, political newcomer Alex Walker debuted his candidacy with a slickly produced, 2-minute video that depicted constituents taking shelter from a literal fecal storm, meant to depict the raw sewage the young Democrat accused Boebert of spewing. As intended, the video went viral, helping propel Walker into the primary, but he lost the nomination to Adam Frisch, who took the opposite approach — vowing a calm counter to what he termed Boebert’s “angertainment” approach to politics — and nearly prevailed in November, losing by just over 500 votes. Frisch restarted his campaign mere weeks after conceding, leading Boebert to eventually jump districts to avoid a rematch.

Biggest Tumble From Pole Position: Jon Keyser gathers forged petition signatures

Heading into the 2016 election, Republican Jon Keyser, a dashing young state lawmaker and Air Force reservist, appeared poised to mount a formidable challenge to Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s bid for a second full term. That all changed, however, when a progressive group discovered oddly similar signatures on some of Keyser’s nominating petitions, sparking a scandal that ultimately derailed the one-time frontrunner’s campaign after it turned out a hired circulator had forged multiple signatures, including one from a woman who had died weeks before supposedly affixing her name to Keyser’s paperwork. A bizarre on-camera interview with 9News reporter Marshall Zelinger sealed it for Keyser, who lost the primary and later moved to another state.

Spookiest 11th Hour Scare: Upstart activist nearly ends Doug Lamborn’s career

Also in 2016, Lamborn almost didn’t make it to a sixth term when a young tea party activist nearly kept the incumbent from making the primary ballot at the GOP assembly. Seemingly out of nowhere, Calandara Vargas came within 18 delegate votes of ending Lamborn’s career by keeping him under the required 30% threshold to qualify for the primary, though the seasoned campaigner easily prevailed in the primary. Lesson learned, Lamborn made a point of petitioning his way into future primaries.

Most Audacious Gambit: Dave Williams sues to add insult to his name

Before he won election as state Republican chairman and later launched his second run in the 5th CD, Williams tried to oust Lamborn in 2022 with a little help from a phrase some conservatives used to express their disdain for Biden. Williams filed a lawsuit that went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, asking state election officials to list his name on ballots as Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams. Williams argued that the phrase — code for “F— Joe Biden” — was his actual nickname, but the courts didn’t buy it. Neither did voters, who re-nominated Lamborn by a wide margin.

Most Painful Point Made: Levi Tillemann pepper-sprays himself

Perhaps Colorado’s most unexpected recent primary moment occurred in 2018, when Democratic congressional hopeful Levi Tillemann turned on the camera and shot himself in the face with pepper spray to demonstrate his proposal to stock classrooms with the substance to help prevent school shootings. “This is dangerous — do not attempt,” read a caption on the campaign video as Tillemann howled in pain. The stunt drew plenty of attention — including landing Tillemann an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show — but was almost universally met with mockery. Tillemann lost the primary to attorney Jason Crow, who went on to defeat Republican Mike Coffman in November.

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