U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff secured a dominant victory Saturday at a Democratic Party assembly, earning him a slot in the June 30 primary and setting the stage for a likely one-on-one contest between him and John Hickenlooper.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats did not meet as scheduled, but instead cast their vote electronically and telephonically for one of three Democratic Senate candidates: Romanoff, Stephany Rose Spaulding, and Erik Underwood.

Romanoff won 86% of the 2,860 delegate votes, Spaulding took 9% and Underwood grabbed less than 1%. More than 4 percent of delegates abstained from voting. Candidates needed 30% of the total to qualify for the June 30 ballot.

“Voters don’t want to replace one fossil fuel funded, insurance industry parroting candidate for another,” Romanoff said in a statement after his win, criticizing both Hickenlooper and incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner.

“And they certainly don’t want to hire someone who told them over and over again that he’d be a terrible senator — or someone like Cory Gardner who’s already proving it,” added Romanoff, a former speaker of the Colorado House.

The state assembly vote is one of two ways candidates can qualify for the June 30 primary. The other is by turning in 1,500 signatures from each of the state’s seven congressional districts, which Hickenlooper successfully did in February.

“This health crisis has been hard on everyone and has made clear how broken Washington is,” Hickenlooper said Saturday, adding that his campaign “is ready to win the nomination in June” and the general election in November.

A trio of candidates fell short of the signature requirement, in part, they say, because of the pandemic. They are considering legal action. Meanwhile, Saturday’s vote eliminates Spaulding and Underwood from the U.S. Senate race.

It’s likely then that Romanoff, the favorite of progressive Democrats, will face off head-to-head June 30 against Hickenlooper, the favorite of establishment, moderate Democrats. Romanoff has strong activist support and momentum, while Hickenlooper has far more money and superior name recognition.

Republicans held their state assembly online Saturday and kicked off voting in the Senate race, where the incumbent Gardner, of Yuma, faces a long-shot primary challenge from Margot Dupre. Results will be announced next Saturday.

During the virtual Republican assembly, Gardner’s campaign played a video that featured President Donald Trump praising him at a February rally in Colorado Springs. Gardner, speaking from a home office, told his fellow Republicans that Democrats believe beating him will help them take control of the Senate.

“My message to Chuck Schumer is to keep your hands off of our Constitution,” Gardner said of the Senate minority leader, a Democrat from New York.

Gardner said he was running “to fight back against the Green New Deal, to fight back against efforts to take away our Second Amendment rights, to fight back against efforts to increase taxes” and to work to improve the economy.

Romanoff, meanwhile, embraced the Green New Deal in remarks after his victory.

“When we come out of this crisis, Americans want to know whether we’ll put millions of people back to work through a Green New Deal and whether we’ll have health care that can never be taken away again,” the liberal Democrat claimed.

“I say yes. Cory Gardner and John Hickenlooper say no.”