By Andrew Hay and Brad Brooks
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Colorado Springs, a military town and global center for Christian evangelism, has sent a Republican to Washington every election since its US House of Representatives district was created in 1970.
Then came 2026.
The victory of Jessica Killin, an Army veteran who was among dozens of Democrats who flipped a seat this week, is one of the starkest examples of how the party built its resounding win on affordability issues, demographics
and candidates, one district at a time.
In an area with five military installations, where soldiers pack fast-food restaurants at lunchtime, Killin's triumph relied on votes of veterans, service members and their families, who represent about a third of the population, and for whom the war in Iran is personal. A soldier deployed from the city's Fort Carson US Army base was among the first Americans to die in the conflict.
Killin, a first-time candidate, said her win was a repudiation of Republican incumbent Jeff Crank's support for President Donald Trump and underscored voters' frustrations with the Iran war, tariffs and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
A supporter who canvassed for her found immigration also was on the minds of Latinos in a district where the population of metropolitan Colorado Springs more than doubled to around 782,000 in the last four decades, bringing greater ethnic diversity and a younger, more highly educated electorate.
"I am resolved to make the history that really matters, combating horrific corruption and chaos that we are all honestly sick of in Washington, DC," Killin, a former US Army paratrooper and aide to ex-second gentleman Doug Emhoff, told reporters on Thursday.
Crank had tried to portray Killin as an outsider.
"We cannot let our community turn into Denver or Boulder," Crank posted on social media last week, referring to the two Democratic-controlled cities to the north.
Killin targeted centrist and left-leaning residents in the state’s second-largest city, and her hometown, who in the past three presidential cycles abandoned both major parties, swelling unaffiliated voters by nearly half to 53% of the electorate in El Paso County, according to county data.
In a metropolitan area where more than 200 space, aerospace, cybersecurity, and defense companies employ around 111,000 people, and account for over 40% of the local economy, Killin hammered Crank's support of Trump's "reckless" war in Iran and argued that Congress needed to reclaim its war-powers authority.
Karl Schneider, 57, a former US special forces officer and ex-chair of the El Paso Republican Party, backed Killin to rein in a presidency he sees as militarily out of control.
"Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States of America, our republic, and I think to the rest of the world," said Schneider, an executive at an AI cybersecurity advisory firm who served as a US Army Green Beret.
For others, like Rick Wood, 67, Crank failed to help tackle high gas and grocery prices and tied himself too closely to Trump, whose approval rating is near a career low of 32%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll.
"They ran on Trump's coattails," said Wood, a US Air Force veteran.
'NEVER SEEN BEFORE'
Some Republicans interviewed by Reuters in the district that is home to the Focus on the Family evangelical organization were stunned by the blue wave, saying they feared the country would descend into communism, echoing warnings from Trump about the recent rise of left-wing Democratic candidates.
Politics professor Sara Hagedorn saw Killin, and other Democrats who won in former Republican strongholds, as a possible return to the fiscally responsible "Blue Dog" Democrats of the 1990s and early 2000s who worked across party lines.
"She has a real opportunity here to be a real moderate or independent voice within the Democratic Party," said Hagedorn, who teaches at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
Killin's campaign coffers swelled after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee listed the district as "in play" in February, the first time the committee had targeted the area.
Bruce Barron, 65, a former Republican congressional aide, canvassed for Killin in southeast Colorado Springs where the school district has around 54% Hispanic students and many of the Black community live.
"Every Hispanic I talked to, it resonates with them, the concern about Hispanics not being safe under the Trump administration,” said Barron.
Killin’s campaign outraised Crank’s by nearly two to one with $5.6 million in funds.
She deployed over 400 volunteers to knock on over 100,000 doors while hosting around 150 events to meet voters, according to the campaign.
As Kyle Trei, 40, canvassed for Killin in south Colorado Springs, where American flags fly outside many homes and fuel-hungry pickups stand in driveways, he met conservatives willing to support Killin after they saw Crank back a war that has stoked energy prices.
"This is a candidate that this district has never seen before," Trei, an IT professional, said of Killin.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Colorado Springs and Brad Brooks in Longmont. Editing by Donna Bryson and Alistair Bell)
