Colorado U.S. Senate Voter Guide: Baisley, Hickenlooper and Four Others on Priorities and Health Care
Six candidates are on the ballot for U.S. Senate in Colorado on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026: Republican Mark Baisley, Democratic incumbent John Hickenlooper, Forward Party candidate Bob Chew, Approval Voting Party candidate Christopher Baum, Libertarian Blake Huber and Unity Party candidate Adam Withrow, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's official candidate list. The state also lists three certified write-in candidates: Donald Willoughby (unaffiliated), Will Powers (Republican) and Ryan Apelbaum (Republican).
The Digital Free Press voter guide video compares all six candidates on two questions: their top priority and health care. Here is where each one stands, based on the video, the candidates' own words, their campaign websites and Colorado reporting.
The priorities in the video match answers the candidates gave in candidate questionnaires published by the Fort Collins Coloradoan on Oct. 1 and the Post Independent on Oct. 8, and in other statements cited below. The Coloradoan asked each candidate, "What is your top issue in this race? Tell us what actions you would take to address it." Hickenlooper is seeking a second term. He has said it would be his last, CPR News reported.
Mark Baisley (Republican)
Baisley, 71, of Woodland Park, is a state senator. He was elected to the Colorado House in 2018 and to the state Senate in 2022, and he won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate without opposition after switching from the governor's race, Colorado Newsline and CPR News reported. According to his campaign website, he spent his career as an aerospace engineer with Martin Marietta, Hughes, Raytheon and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and now leads a Colorado software company.
On his top priority, the video says Baisley would address affordability by cutting the burden of government and making first-time home buying easier. That matches his own words. "The primary way of addressing affordability is to reduce the burden of government," he told the Post Independent, adding that he plans to introduce bills to "bring first-time homeownership within reach through lender incentives," remove property values from the property tax formula and require universities that benefited from what he called "the Obama loan federalization" to use their endowments to help eliminate student debt. He listed "reducing the cost of living (affordability) through smart, lean government" as his first priority in The Denver Post's questionnaire, where he described the home-buying incentives as "lender incentives for mortgage rates pegged to the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield." "It will be my primary goal in the U.S. Senate to find every opportunity to reduce government spending," he wrote in an Oct. 8 opinion piece in the Summit Daily.
On health care, the video says Baisley supports health savings accounts and letting people buy coverage across state lines. That checks out. Asked by the Post Independent how he would improve the health care system, Baisley said he wants to join Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott in passing Scott's plan, which Baisley quoted as offering "an HSA-style account that allows families to use dollars for any plan they want" and letting people "shop across state lines and purchase the health care plan that best fits their needs." He told The Colorado Sun he would push for consumer-funded, tax-exempt health savings accounts for routine care and limit insurance to catastrophic events. "I think we all need to accept that there is a level of generally predictable care that we should just account for in our personal budgets," he said. He also told the Sun he supports the Medicaid work requirements in the 2025 federal budget law, while saying he is concerned they may keep some people who need the program from getting it. At the candidates' first debate, Baisley said health care "is not something we should be sticking our nose in as a government so much," CPR News reported. "Reform healthcare industry" is one of his three listed priorities in The Denver Post questionnaire.
John Hickenlooper (Democrat)
Hickenlooper, 74, of Denver, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, defeating Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. A former geologist who opened Colorado's first brewpub, he served as mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and as governor from 2011 to 2019, The Colorado Sun reported. He defeated state Sen. Julie Gonzales in this summer's Democratic primary, CPR News reported. In 2020, Colorado's Independent Ethics Commission found that Hickenlooper violated the state's gift ban on two trips he took as governor and fined him $2,750; his campaign said he accepted the findings and took responsibility, Colorado Public Radio reported.
On his top priority, the video says Hickenlooper is focused on a "cost of living emergency," including housing, gas and health care. That matches his answers. "We're in a cost-of-living emergency — no question," he told the Coloradoan. "We need to un-rig the system and lower prices." In that answer he said lowering prices "starts with ending the president's war with Iran that's driving up gas and grocery prices," and that he would reverse what he called "MAGA's extreme budget," which he said raised health care costs for millions. On housing, he pointed to "passing our major housing bill and securing millions for Colorado housing projects," saying he will build on that to bring down prices. He listed fixing the health care system, ending President Trump's tariffs, which he calls illegal, and reducing the cost of housing as parts of his first priority in The Denver Post's questionnaire.
On health care, the video says Hickenlooper supports a public option and letting Medicare negotiate the prices of all drugs. That checks out. "That starts with creating a public option and bringing down prices by empowering Medicare to negotiate all drug prices and rooting out fraud and abuse," he told the Post Independent. "Healthcare should be affordable, accessible and universal." His campaign website says he supports legislation for a public option and Medicare negotiation of all drug prices and wants to restore funding for Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies. He told The Colorado Sun he wants "total transparency" in health care pricing and does not think private insurance should be eliminated, and he called the 2025 law's Medicaid work requirements "punitive." On his voting record, Senate roll call votes show Hickenlooper voted for the Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 7, 2022, the law that let Medicare negotiate prices for some prescription drugs, and against the 2025 budget bill, H.R. 1, on July 1, 2025.
Bob Chew (Forward Party)
Chew, 67, of Boulder, is a former U.S. Navy submarine officer and chemical engineer who co-founded and led the company CAI from 1996 to 2021, according to The Denver Post's questionnaire. He is a former Republican who joined the Forward Party last year, and this is his first run for office, Colorado Newsline reported. He has put more than $1 million of his own money into his campaign, CPR News reported.
On his top priority, the video says Chew is focused on the national debt and would close capital gains and estate tax loopholes. That checks out. Asked for his top issue, he told the Coloradoan, "The national debt is the defining issue," and his campaign website calls the debt "a ticking time bomb." The website lists proposals including a plan to "reform capital gains and estate tax laws to eliminate loopholes for the ultra-wealthy, and earmark tax revenue for debt reduction and entitlement solvency," and says he would introduce debt-reduction legislation in his first year. "We cannot keep passing the cost of today's spending to future generations," he told The Denver Post.
On health care, the video says Chew lists lowering health care costs among his priorities. That checks out: he told The Denver Post his second priority is helping working families manage rising costs of "housing, groceries, health care, energy, and other everyday necessities." His campaign website says the United States spends "nearly 20% of our entire economy on health care" and that "there is no magic solution, and politicians who claim otherwise are not telling the truth." It calls for "a practical, honest conversation about how to deliver better care at lower cost." In an interview with CPR News, Chew said, "I don't have a silver bullet," and pointed to "price transparency, competition, greater use of technology, including that dreaded word AI."
Christopher Baum (Approval Voting Party)
Baum, of the Approval Voting Party, is retired. According to Ballotpedia, he served in the U.S. Navy, holds degrees from Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, and worked as an information systems administrator, small business owner and computer consultant. He ran for Colorado's 8th Congressional District in 2024, according to iVoterGuide. He told the Coloradoan he has no campaign website and is "running to publicize approval voting."
On his top priority, the video says Baum wants to replace one-choice voting and supports less government and less debt. That checks out. "We need a more balanced voting process than the current plurality system," he told the Coloradoan. "It is impossible to vote for a lesser-known candidate without reducing your vote for a main party candidate." Asked for two other priorities, he answered: "Reduce government, eliminate debt." Under approval voting, which his party is named for, voters may mark as many candidates as they like and the candidate with the most votes wins.
On health care, the video does not list a position for Baum, and he has no campaign website. In a candidate questionnaire for iVoterGuide, an online voter guide affiliated with AFA Action, Baum chose the answer saying "taxpayer funded health care should be abolished in all forms, and Medicaid and Medicare should be defunded." In the same questionnaire, he wrote, "Medical care is an individual responsibility. The 10th amendment to the US Constitution prohibits government involvement in anything not enumerated in the Constitution."
Blake Huber (Libertarian)
Huber, 75, of Denver, is retired and has been involved in politics for nearly 50 years, he told the Coloradoan. He has served as chair of the Libertarian Party of Colorado and on the Libertarian National Committee and helped found the Approval Voting Party. According to his campaign website, he spent more than 30 years in management and has run for vice president in 2016, Colorado secretary of state in 2018 and president in 2020 and 2024.
On his top priority, the video says Huber is focused on housing costs, including land, regulation and financing. That matches his answer to the Coloradoan, where he named housing and pointed to the building boom after World War II: "Relatively inexpensive land, simpler development regulations, government-backed financing and tax advantages for homeownership all contributed to the boom," he said. He told The Denver Post he supports "removing regulations that raise the cost of housing, energy, transportation, and doing business." His campaign website lists three main issues: approval voting, immigration reform that combines secure borders with streamlined legal entry, and cutting federal regulations on small businesses.
On health care, the video does not list a position for Huber, and his campaign website does not list a position on health care. In a candidate questionnaire for iVoterGuide, an online voter guide affiliated with AFA Action, Huber chose the answer saying "Medicaid and Medicare should remain available, but no other taxpayer-funded programs are necessary." He explained: "It preserves the existing safety net for seniors and lower-income Americans while rejecting expansion into universal taxpayer-funded healthcare or a government insurance option." He also wrote that the government should not keep databases identifying people by their illnesses, saying "an individual's medical information is private."
Adam Withrow (Unity Party)
Withrow, of the Unity Party, told the Coloradoan he is "an educator, a builder and a mountain guide." His campaign website says he has worked as a ranch hand, a certified nursing assistant, a cook, a contractor and a detention officer, and that he studied philosophy, psychology and history in college. He ran for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District in 2024, according to iVoterGuide.
On his top priority, the video says Withrow wants a federal living wage tied to the Consumer Price Index. That checks out. "I want to move to establish a federal living wage that is tied to the consumer price index. This way, if prices go up, wages go up with them," he told the Coloradoan, adding that it "can be rolled out slowly based on a ratio of gross receipts and profitability tuned to each industry." He described the issue as "our complete lack of an acceptable minimum standard of living."
On health care, the video says Withrow supports a public, not-for-profit insurance option and closing the Medicaid coverage gap. That checks out. His campaign website says "the Medicaid coverage gap must be closed" and "we need a public, not for profit buy in option for health insurance. We don't need a mandate, we need options." The website also says the private insurance industry "must be abolished" in the long run and that Medicaid, VA coverage and Medicare "need to be brought to the level of private insurance." In a questionnaire for iVoterGuide, he chose the option for government-funded insurance available to all alongside private options, writing, "It is perfectly reasonable to establish a federal program where premiums cover care and operating expenses without a profit motive."
Where to Follow the Candidates
Mark Baisley: @MarkBaisley on X. John Hickenlooper: @Hickenlooper on X and @johnhickenlooper on TikTok. Bob Chew: @bobchew2026 on X and TikTok. No campaign accounts on X or TikTok were found for Christopher Baum, Blake Huber or Adam Withrow.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. This guide is for information only; The Digital Free Press does not endorse any candidate.
Yossi Schmidt, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Digital Free Press
Hold Everyone Accountable.
Sources: Colorado Secretary of State, 2026 general election candidate list: https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/elections/vote/generalCandidates.html ; Fort Collins Coloradoan, "Colorado election: Q&A with U.S. Senate candidate Christopher Baum" (Oct. 1, 2026): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/01/christopher-baum-running-for-election-to-u-s-senate-colorado-midterm/91799841007/ ; Fort Collins Coloradoan, "Colorado election: Q&A with U.S. Senate candidate Blake Huber" (Oct. 1, 2026): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/01/blake-huber-running-for-election-to-u-s-senate-colorado-midterm/91799847007/ ; Fort Collins Coloradoan, "Colorado election: Q&A with U.S. Senate candidate Adam Withrow" (Oct. 1, 2026): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/01/adam-withrow-running-for-election-to-u-s-senate-colorado-midterm/91799852007/ ; Fort Collins Coloradoan, Q&A with John Hickenlooper (Oct. 1, 2026): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/01/john-hickenlooper-running-for-reelection-to-u-s-senate-colorado-midterm/91799692007/ ; Fort Collins Coloradoan, Q&A with Bob Chew (Oct. 1, 2026): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/01/bob-chew-running-for-election-to-u-s-senate-colorado-midterm/91799813007/ ; Post Independent, "Q&A: Meet the candidates running to represent Colorado in the US Senate" (Oct. 8, 2026): https://www.postindependent.com/opinion/meet-candidates-colorado-us-senate-baisley-hickenlooper/ ; The Denver Post, "Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Q&A" (Oct. 3, 2026): https://www.denverpost.com/2026/10/03/colorado-u-s-senate-candidate-qa/ ; The Colorado Sun, "John Hickenlooper and Mark Baisley on the issues" (Oct. 5, 2026): https://coloradosun.com/2026/10/05/colorado-senate-race-candidate-guide/ ; Colorado Newsline, Voter Guide: U.S. senator: https://coloradonewsline.com/voter-guides/contests/2026-general-u-s-senate/ ; CPR News, "Voter guide for Colorado's US Senate midterm election" (Sept. 24, 2026): https://www.cpr.org/2026/09/24/vg-2026-colorado-us-senate-voter-guide/ ; CPR News, "Colorado candidates for US Senate face off in first debate" (Oct. 12, 2026): https://www.cpr.org/2026/10/12/colorado-candidates-for-us-senate-face-off-in-first-debate/ ; CPR News, "US Senate candidate Bob Chew says he's a problem solver who will focus on fiscal responsibility" (Oct. 12, 2026): https://www.cpr.org/2026/10/12/us-senate-candidate-bob-chew-forward-party/ ; Summit Daily, "Baisley: I will aim to reduce the footprint of government in our lives, if elected" (Oct. 8, 2026): https://www.summitdaily.com/opinion/opinion-baisley-i-will-aim-to-reduce-the-footprint-of-government-in-our-lives-if-elected/ ; U.S. Senate roll call vote 372, 119th Congress (H.R. 1, July 1, 2025): https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00372.htm ; U.S. Senate roll call vote 325, 117th Congress (H.R. 5376, Aug. 7, 2022): https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00325.htm ; Ballotpedia, Chris Baum: https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Baum ; iVoterGuide, Christopher Baum: https://ivoterguide.com/candidate/72980/race/32757/election/1475 ; iVoterGuide, Blake Huber: https://ivoterguide.com/candidate/44225/race/32757/election/1475 ; iVoterGuide, Adam Withrow: https://ivoterguide.com/candidate/79045/race/32757/election/1475 ; Mark Baisley campaign: https://baisleyforsenate.com/issues/ ; John Hickenlooper campaign, Issues: https://hickenlooper.com/issues/ ; Bob Chew campaign, Issues: https://bobchew2026.com/issues/ ; Blake Huber campaign: https://lpcocolorado.my.canva.site/blake-huber-us-senate-website ; Adam Withrow campaign, Healthcare: https://www.senatorwithrow.com/healthcare ; Adam Withrow campaign, About: https://www.senatorwithrow.com/about ; Colorado Public Radio, "Hickenlooper Owes Colorado $2,750 For Ethics Violations" (June 12, 2020): https://www.cpr.org/2020/06/12/hickenlooper-owes-colorado-2750-for-ethics-violations/
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