Hickenlooper. (Creative Commons image)

Democrat John Hickenlooper won the Colorado governor's seat.

Hickenlooper faced off against Tom Tancredo, an Independent, and Dan Maes of the Republican party. Bill Ritter was the incumbent governor, but he decided not to run for this election, leaving the race wide open.

Republicans headed into election day with a significant advantage over Democrats according to the Colorado secretary of state's office, via the Denver Post. In numbers up to date from the weekend, Republicans had a 61,500- ballot advantage over Democrats. 

The results relied heavily on Tuesday's voter turnout. 

The race came down to Hickenlooper and Tacredo, while Maes had only single digit support.

Hickenlooper is the Mayor of Denver who graduated from Weslayan with a B.A. in English and a masters degree in geology.  He was a geologist and then became an entrepreneur before getting into politics.  He owns a popular restaurant and Brewery and helped revitalize downtown Denver.

Tancredo was a senator for Colorado from 1999 to 2009 and represented the Republican party.  He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a degree in Political Science.  Tancredo was a history teacher before he became senator.  He is running on the Constitution Party Ticket.

Tancredo has placed importance on the issues of creating jobs, fiscal responsibility, and securing Colorado.   He wants to improve the budget by building a zero based budget, limit state spending, and refuse federal money that would eventually be bad for the state.  He says he wants Colorado to secure itself by an Arizona-like interior and employer enforcement laws and he opposes in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.  Tancredo is also an advocate of pro-life.

Hickenlooper emphasized helping small businesses, improving Agriculture, water conservation, improving the school system, and healthcare reform in his campaign.  He wants to help pass the 2012 Farm Bill to improve conditions in the agriculture industry.  He also wants to support the arts and creative enterprises.

Drama began in early October when Tancredo allegedly asked Maes to drop out of the race.  Maes did not drop out, but he is way behind the other two candidates in the polls.  Despite all the drama from the conservative side, it seems that the democrats took the election.  

You can reach staff reporter Kellie Caro.