Across the state Saturday, Democrats will congregate in schools, churches, rec centers and firehouses to begin a convoluted, six-week process that will end in a winnowing of their large U.S. Senate candidate field.

Five Democratic candidates for Senate will compete in Saturday’s caucuses: John Hickenlooper, Andrew Romanoff, Stephany Rose Spaulding, Erik Underwood and Trish Zornio. Five other candidates will try to obtain ballot access for the late June primary by collecting signatures, bypassing the weekend caucuses.

For the five competing Saturday, a preference poll of caucus attendees will be the first gauge of their statewide support and a true test of their ability to compete. The poll will be used to allocate delegates to county assemblies later in March. Polls taken at county assemblies will then be used to allocate delegates to the state assembly April 18, where a candidate will need 30% support to have their name placed on June 30 ballots.

“This is the first time Colorado will get a sense of where people actually stand on the candidates,” Spaulding said of Saturday’s caucuses. “Coloradans are not yet decided on who they want to be their nominee.”

In interviews Thursday, several candidates said they have spoken to engaged Democratic voters who are unaware caucuses are occurring or who have lost faith in caucuses after Iowa’s mishaps this year. In Romanoff’s words, Colorado’s caucuses are “a system that no one would design from scratch.”

“I actually have no idea what the turnout will be,” he said.

The field of five caucusing candidates includes Hickenlooper, the former governor and leading Democratic candidate, as well as two of his top liberal opponents, Romanoff and Spaulding. Zornio has been running longer than the other four and has toured every Colorado county twice. Underwood has been through the caucus process before, when he was a gubernatorial candidate in 2018.

“I do expect to win, of course,” Hickenlooper told reporters Feb. 28 at a Denver event with U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who endorsed him that day.

“He’s going to kick some serious butt,” Gillibrand added with a laugh, before Hickenlooper slightly downplayed his chances.

“You have to understand, our caucus system is an old-fashioned caucus system, so I might not kick that much butt in the caucus system,” he said. “But I look forward to the primary election.”

Underwood said he will spend Friday meeting with voters in population centers along the Front Range. On Monday, he spoke to what he estimated to be 1,000 people at a Capitol rally opposing Senate Bill 163, which would make the process for requesting vaccine exemptions more onerous.

“I will never get in between a woman trying to protect her child or children,” Underwood said into a megaphone on the steps of the Colorado Capitol. In a Facebook post that day, he wrote, “We cannot let Big Pharma to become a shadow government controlling our choice, freedom, and bodies.”

Romanoff will spend Friday in Colorado Springs, Highlands Ranch, Littleton and Fort Collins. Spaulding said her campaign will continue knocking doors and operating phone banks. Zornio, fighting an illness, will remain at home and make calls reminding her supporters to caucus Saturday.

“We’re feeling good as we look at the number of people who say they’re going to come out and support us,” Zornio said. “We just have to see what happens on Saturday.”

Hickenlooper has led the Democratic field by a wide margin in early polls but faces an engaged and enraged left flank of the party that prefers his more progressive challengers. The caucuses will be the first test of Hickenlooper’s well-funded campaign, as well as those of his liberal critics.

“In the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, many of them are very much anti-Hickenlooper,” said Spaulding. “We’ll see how much they are anti-Hickenlooper come Saturday.”

Preference poll results will be posted by the Colorado Democratic Party online and on Twitter on Saturday afternoon and evening. Though crucial for allocating delegates, such polls are not always indicative of primary success. In 2018, for example, Cary Kennedy easily won the Democratic gubernatorial preference poll but lost handily to Jared Polis in that summer’s primary.

Democrats can take part in Saturday’s caucuses if they will be at least 18 years old by Election Day, are registered to vote, and were registered as Democrats by Feb. 14. Precinct numbers can be found on the Secretary of State’s Office website, GoVoteColorado.com, and precinct locations are at ColoradoDems.org.

Republicans will also gather for caucuses Saturday, though there isn’t a competitive Senate primary. For the re-election campaigns of Sen. Cory Gardner and President Donald Trump, the caucuses are an opportunity to organize grassroots support and energize volunteers eight months before November.