MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: 2014 Election

Interview

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Election night is always very exciting and it`s very bad for your sleep patterns particularly because of Alaska. But honestly, none of us had it as bad as John Hickenlooper and Bob Beauprez had it last night, the two candidates for governor in Colorado.

Polls closed at 9:00 Eastern Time in Colorado last night. But even with staying up all night we still had no idea who won that governor`s race last night. It wasn`t until 7:30 this morning local time that "The Denver Post" called the race. They called it for Governor Hickenlooper. They said he had been reelected. Even then, it wasn`t until two hours later that NBC News called the race for Governor Hickenlooper as well.

And it wasn`t until about five hours after that, the middle of this afternoon, before Governor Hickenlooper`s Republican challenger Bob Beauprez finally conceded the race.

So, yes, election night is always very exciting. But it was nowhere near as exciting for any of us as it was for our next very tired guest.

Joining us now for the interview is the newly reelected governor from the state of Colorado, Governor John Hickenlooper.

Congratulations, Governor Hickenlooper. How are you feeling today?

GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), COLORADO: I feel great, Rachel.I mean, to be sleep deprived always puts you a little bit in that kind of special zone. But when you win, the zone is much nicer.

MADDOW: It`s better lit at lease.

HICKENLOOPER: Exactly.

MADDOW: So, your race was particularly tight right up until the very end. The other statewide race in Colorado saw the defeat of your friend Mark Udall, the Democratic congressman, incumbent congressman from Colorado. Were you expecting that it might be a split result? Was your internal polling telling you an optimistic story, or did you know it was going to be this tight?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, we know it was a tight race in both cases. And it`s interesting, the rural rates, their votes coming sooner. If you look at the vote counts now, Cory Gardner and I have almost exactly the same number of votes. Just his came in a lot sooner than mine did. And so, Mark Udall`s vote comes back up, I think in the end that race will be decided by probably about 3 percent which my race will probably be 2 1/2 percent.

MADDOW: In terms of what`s going on in Colorado in the big picture, I was interested -- I went out last week to talk to Senator Udall and Senator Bennet and some other people and think about what`s going on in that state, from 2004, starting about 2004, Colorado Democrats have been running the board. Before that Republicans were winning all the top of the ticket race, winning the governorships, running those Senate races, starting about 2004, about 10 years ago, Democrats started winning everything, up to and including your race that got you into the governor`s seat in the first place.

It seems now like Colorado is now either a more balanced place or tilting back towards the Republican Party.

What`s your view of where your state is at both ideologically and in partisan terms after what happened last night?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think we`re an interesting test case for the country. Colorado`s almost exactly even, you know, one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third independent, and really I don`t think it ever tipped so much. It kind of trended a little bit. But those were a lot of close races, just like last night.

And I think it depends on the candidates and you get better candidates one year than another, or in this case there was a head wind, anybody connected with Washington both Republicans or Democrats, had a certain -- to a certain degree a head wind. And I think that hurt Mark a little bit.

MADDOW: In terms of what happens now with this next term that`s ahead of you, obviously, you had a bit of a national target on you in part because the gun lobby was so angry about the gun safety measures that you were willing to see put in place in your state, particularly after the tragedies you`ve had in the state around gun violence. That gave you a little bit of a national gloss to your race if only by your enemies. Now, you have this very tight re-election effort.

What do you think you`re going to be able to do? What`s most important to you to try to do in your second term now that last night`s clear?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, just like in first term, we tried to manage from the middle, and we`re going to keep doing that. Colorado has always been the thinnest state but we haven`t been the healthiest state. And I think we`re coming close to that in the last four years. We cut teenage pregnancy by 40 percent, we reduced prescription drug abuse by over 20 percent, we added 411,000 people to the rolls of people who have health insurance, and yet the same time, our average premium increase a few weeks ago was a little over 1 percent.

So, we`re controlling the cost curve. I think that`s a big push. Obviously, the economy is big out here. We have one of the fastest growing economies in the country. And that helped me probably more than it did Mark just because I`m here every day and, you know, when Forbes rates you the number one work force, things like that, local officials I think probably get a little more credit.

MADDOW: Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, thanks very much for your time tonight. Congratulations again. And I do hope you`re able to get some rest. You got a lot of work ahead of you, sir. Thank you.

HICKENLOOPER: Thanks, Rachel.

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