Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed in the Aurora theater shooting, did not win election to the state Senate

AURORA, Colo. — The father of a man killed in the Aurora movie theater shootings has lost his bid for a Colorado state Senate seat.

Tom Sullivan, who lost his son Alex in the 2012 massacre, ran as a Democrat in a heavily Republican district in suburban Denver. The Air Force veteran and retired postal worker said he wanted to bring his personal campaign for gun control and other issues.

But Republican incumbent Sen. Jack Tate ended Sullivan’s bid. Tate, of Centennial, is an engineer who was appointed to the seat in December and won his first four-year term on Tuesday.

Sullivan has lobbied the Legislature for limits on high-capacity gun magazines and testified this year for an unsuccessful bill to remove Colorado’s requirement that death penalty verdicts be unanimous.