John Hickenlooper

John Hickenlooper (born February 7, 1952, Narberth, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American Democratic politician who was elected to represent the state of Colorado in the U.S. Senate in 2020. He had previously served as governor of the state (2011–19). In 2026 Hickenlooper was elected to a second term in the Senate, defeating Republican challenger Mark Baisley in the general election.

Early life and education

Hickenlooper and his three elder siblings were raised by their mother alone after their father died of cancer when Hickenlooper was eight years old. After graduating from the Haverford School outside Philadelphia in 1970, Hickenlooper attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1974 and a master’s degree in geology in 1980. He later worked as a geologist for Buckhorn Petroleum, an oil and gas company in Colorado. After he was laid off from that position during the nationwide recession of the mid-1980s, he and several business partners opened Colorado’s first brewpub (a restaurant that sells beverages brewed on the premises) in a run-down warehouse district of downtown Denver in 1988. The success of the brewpub was credited with helping to revitalize the district, which became a dining and entertainment hub. Hickenlooper and his partners went on to open brewpubs and restaurants, and to undertake renovations of historical buildings, in a number of cities across the Midwest.

Governor of Colorado

Hickenlooper entered politics in 2003, when he ran for mayor of Denver and won the election in a runoff. As mayor (2003–11), he reduced the city’s large budget deficit, secured passage of an ambitious plan to expand the mass transit system, and bolstered civilian oversight of the police department. He was reelected by a wide margin in 2007. Hickenlooper ran successfully for governor three years later. During his tenure as governor, he supported limited gun control legislation in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater that claimed the lives of 12 people and left 58 others wounded. In 2013 he signed legislation that expanded Medicaid coverage in Colorado as part of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA; 2010). He also created a task force to help settle disputes between environmental groups and oil and gas interests in the state. Hickenlooper won his bid for reelection in 2014, turning back a strong challenge from the Republican candidate, Bob Beauprez.

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Presidential candidate and U.S. senator

In March 2019 Hickenlooper announced his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in 2020. His campaign never gained momentum, however. After participating in a couple of the early Democratic presidential primary debates, he withdrew from the race in August 2019. Shortly afterward he launched a bid to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in the 2020 general election. During the campaign, Hickenlooper criticized Gardner for his support of failed Republican efforts to repeal the PPACA. He also denounced Gardner’s vote to acquit Pres. Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial held in early 2020. Trump had been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives over allegations that he had withheld aid to Ukraine in order to pressure that country into opening a corruption investigation into Trump’s political rival and likely Democratic opponent for the U.S. presidency in 2020, Joe Biden. In the election, on November 3, 2020, Hickenlooper defeated Gardner by a comfortable margin—and Biden defeated Trump. In February 2021, at the end of Trump’s second impeachment trial, on the charge of having incited the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack, Hickenlooper voted to find Trump guilty.

As a U.S. senator, Hickenlooper supported key voting rights legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives (but blocked in the Senate by Republican filibusters), including the Freedom to Vote Act (2021). He also voted in favor of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021), a scaled-back version of an infrastructure plan announced by Biden in March 2021; the Respect for Marriage Act (2022), which required all U.S. jurisdictions to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in any other U.S. jurisdiction; and the Inflation Reduction Act (2022), which promoted the development of clean-energy technologies.

Hickenlooper continued to be a critic of President Trump during his second administration. In August 2026 Hickenlooper led a group in the Senate to introduce a joint resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities during the 2026 Iran war, the senators reiterating that under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war.

Hickenlooper was among a number of incumbent Democratic members of Congress who faced an election challenge from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries in 2026. He successfully defeated his Republican challenger Mark Baisley in the general election on November 3, 2026.

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