Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is running for governor of Colorado next year, according to three sources familiar with his plans.
Bennet, who is expected to announce his campaign as soon as Friday, will look to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in a state that has trended toward his party in recent years. And he is the latest Senate Democrat looking to leave Washington, after three retirement announcements in recent weeks.
Kamala Harris won Colorado by 9 percentage points in November, and Polis won a second term in 2022 by 19 points. Bennet also won a third term that year by 15 points, meaning his term runs until 2028 — but he can run for governor and remain in the Senate.
Bennet will not be alone in the Democratic field, with state Attorney General Phil Weiser also in the race, creating a battle of two statewide officeholders.
Axios was first to report Bennet's move to run for governor. A spokesperson for Bennet declined to comment.
In a statement, Weiser said, "Two years ago, the voters sent Senator Bennet back to D.C. because we believed he would be there for us no matter what — especially in historically dangerous moments like the one we currently face. Now more than ever, we need experienced Democratic leaders in Washington."
Republicans could be looking at a potentially crowded primary field, with two state legislators already in the race. But the GOP faces an uphill climb in the state, where Democrats have found success in statewide races.
Bennet, a former Denver school superintendent, has worked as a bipartisan dealmaker, a member of the so-called Gang of Eight that worked on an ill-fated bipartisan immigration measure.
Bennet has also been known to make fiery speeches on the Senate floor and in hearing rooms, recently admonishing CIA Director John Ratcliffe over the news that administration officials discussed military plans in a Signal chat group.
“This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for him is entirely unacceptable. It’s an embarrassment,” Bennet said. “You need to do better. You need to do better.”
And ahead of his presidential bid in 2019, he delivered a passionate speech lambasting Republicans’ “crocodile tears” about the ongoing government shutdown.
Bennet has also bucked his party at times, becoming the first Senate Democrat last year to warn that President Joe Biden could not defeat Donald Trump after Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
He has been telegraphing an exit from Washington — he told Politico in March that the answer to the country’s “central fight” is “as likely to come from the states as it is from Washington” over the next decade. And he said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” days later that he has been considering “where I can fight best for the people of Colorado.”
In his 2019 book, he described the “pathological culture of the Capital” and chronicled his frustrations with things like the collapse of the bipartisan immigration bill in 2013 at the hands of “hyperfactionalism,” the rise of unlimited campaign spending on policy issues and the decision to end the filibuster for judicial nominees.
His unsuccessful presidential bid in 2020 appealed to nostalgia for pre-Trump politics — he repeatedly argued that “if you elect me president, you won’t have to think about me for two weeks at a time.”
And he has argued his party has a lot of work to do to “create a compelling view for Americans that is going to allow us to lead again.”
“The Democratic Party needs to use this moment of having been repudiated at the national level, to figure out a creative and imaginative agenda for the 21st century that’s going to lift the fortunes of working people and the middle class, all across this country,” he said on “Meet the Press.”
So far this year, three Democratic senators have announced their intention to leave Washington at the end of next year — Michigan’s Gary Peters, Minnesota’s Tina Smith and New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen. Unlike Bennet’s, their terms expire in 2026.
