FILE- Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., listens during a House Rules Committee hearing on the impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 17, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Perlmutter on Monday announced he won’t seek re-election in a competitive district in Denver’s western suburbs, making him the 27th Democrat to retire from the House before an election cycle that’s expected to be difficult for their party. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File) 
FILE – Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., speaks during a House Rules Committee hearing on the impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 17, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Perlmutter on Monday announced he won’t seek re-election in a competitive district in Denver’s western suburbs, making him the 27th Democrat to retire from the House before an election cycle that’s expected to be difficult for their party. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool, File) 
Ed Perlmutter discusses his time spent representing Aurora, Nov. 26 at Anschutz Medical Campus. Starting in January, the congressman from Colorado’s 7th Congressional District will no longer represent any part of Aurora after those districts were redrawn in 2011. Perlmutter represented the medical campus for more than 5 years and oversaw the addition of several key additions to the campus including the VA hospital and infrastructure imporovements. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel) 
Ed Perlmutter discusses his time spent representing Aurora, Nov. 26 at Anschutz Medical Campus. Starting in January, the congressman from Colorado’s 7th Congressional District will no longer represent any part of Aurora after those districts were redrawn in 2011. Perlmutter represented the medical campus for more than 5 years and oversaw the addition of several key additions to the campus including the VA hospital and infrastructure imporovements. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel) 
FILE – In this Thursday, April 2, 2015, file photo, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., is framed between the tripods holding television cameras as he listens to officials speak during a news conference at the construction site of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora, Colo. Perlmutter, a six-term congressman from a competitive district in suburban Denver, will announce his plans to enter Colorado’s race for governor in 2018 on Sunday, April 9, 2017, in Golden, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file) 
FILE – In this Tuesday, July 8, 2014, file photo, President Barack Obama, right, confers with U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., as they walk off Air Force One after landing at Denver International Airport.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) 
FILE – In this Nov. 7, 2016, file photo, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., introduces former Vice President Al Gore during a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Lakewood, Colo. Perlmutter will end his campaign to become Colorado’s next governor just three months after starting and not run for re-election to his suburban congressional seat, a person close to him said Monday, July 10, 2017. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) 
Ed Perlmutter is the US Representative for Colorado’s 7th District. A Colorado native, Rep. Perlmutter played baseball in high school at Jefferson in Edgewater. He didn’t stop in high school either, playing on the men’s congressional members team since being elected to Congress in 2007, where every summer the democrats play the republicans at the Nationals stadium in Washington DC. Rep. Perlmutter also coaches the women’s congressional members team where they compete against the media every summer. Portrait by Philip B. Poston/Sentinel 
From left, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., confer after a brief meeting of the House Rules Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) 
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, center right, speaks to the press with Reps. Diana DeGette, left, Joe Neguse, center left, and Jason Crow after the four Colorado Congress members toured the Aurora GEO facility, July 22, after increasing concerns of the conditions inside the facility. Photo by Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado
DENVER | Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter on Monday announced he won’t seek reelection in a competitive district in Denver’s western suburbs, making him the 26th Democrat to retire from the House before an election cycle that’s expected to be difficult for their party.
First elected in 2006, Perlmutter has largely shrugged off repeated Republican challenges. His seat became modestly more conservative during Colorado’s independent redistricting process last year but Democrats were confident Perlmutter could survive. Now his seat becomes yet another target for Republicans who are anticipating big gains in congressional elections.
“Even though the numbers are slightly tighter we will win,” Perlmutter, 68, said in a statement announcing his retirement. “I’ve never shied away from a challenge but it’s time for me to move on and explore other opportunities.”
Perlmutter represented northern Aurora when first elected. The district was redrawn in 2011.
Perlmutter had flirted with retiring in 2017 after a brief and unsuccessful bid for his party’s gubernatorial nomination. But he changed his mind and easily won reelection in a Democratic wave. With inflation and the persistence of the coronavirus pandemic pulling down President Joe Biden’s polling, 2022 is shaping up to be a far harder election for Democrats.
“Ed Perlmutter knows House Democrats won’t be in the majority after the midterm elections,” Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement. “He made the smart decision to retire rather than lose reelection.”
Perlmutter’s 2006 election was part of Colorado’s transformation from a Republican-leaning state to a Democratic one. At that time, moderates in Denver’s western suburbs were becoming uneasy with then-President George W. Bush’s direction. The region took a sharp turn to the left during the election of President Donald Trump, becoming a prime example of how the former reality-show star drove the suburbs out of the Republican party.
Now it is a more diverse and affluent stretch of suburbia that votes reliably Democratic. Perlmutter’s district voted for Colorado’s newest U.S. Senator, John Hickenlooper, by 10 percentage points in 2020.
Still, the state’s independent redistricting commission redrew the district’s boundaries to include some conservative mountain communities southwest of Denver. And, in the wake of their successful campaigns in Virginia last year, Republicans think the district may be the sort of educated, affluent terrain ripe to return to their column.
Perlmutter’s energetic personality and quarter-century representing the area — he served in the state senate before joining congress — had endeared him to many in both parties.
“Ed has been one of the most dedicated and effective fighters for our state, so my initial reaction was disappointment that Colorado is losing a fighter,” Democratic Gov. Jared Polis told reporters shortly after Perlmutter’s announcement.
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Jim Anderson in Denver contributed to this report.