We all decorate our workspaces with items that bring a smile to our face. On my office wall hangs an old election poster from 2002. It reads in bold lettering, “Yes on Amendment 27! Get big money out of politics!”
Amendment 27 limited campaign contributions and it won in a landslide. And now, some 17 years later, it’s working like a charm and big money is out of politics!
You can see why that poster always cracks me up.
What Colorado’s niggardly contribution limits have really done is stolen most candidates’ ability to run their own campaign. Instead, Amendment 27 delivered the job of running campaigns to self-appointed “friends” who are barred from even communicating with the candidate. Like so many well-intended regulations, it’s having the opposite effect. It increased big money in politics.
Take our last governor’s race. Walker Stapleton and Jared Polis could only except $1,250 in a campaign contributions from a “natural person” thanks to Amendment 27. While Jared Polis, one of the wealthiest men serving in the U.S. Congress at the time, could self-fund his run for governor as much as he wished (and boy did he wish), Stapleton couldn’t.
To match every million dollars Polis gave his own campaign, Stapleton would have had to effectively beg 800 individuals to max out their gifts to him. Polis self-funded at least $23 million without having to take the time, energy and distraction from campaigning to ask a single person for help. Stapleton would have had to get 18,400 donors to max out their contributions to be on funding par with Polis.
Someone else could run their own campaign on Stapleton’s behalf and self-fund it as much as they like through mechanisms like an Independent Expenditure Committee. But they are prohibited from coordinating with the candidate. So, while Polis was able to run his own campaign, which he did masterfully, Stapleton couldn’t stop his friends when they went completely off-target campaigning on his behalf.
Ever wonder why you see so many really stupid advertisements for a candidate. Well, just know they’re mostly not from the candidate. They often do more harm than good, being wrong in fact, tone or message since they can’t coordinate with the candidate’s campaign. But they can dump in millions despite Amendment 27 which, again, got big money out of politics.
Campaign contribution limits helped give birth to “dark money,” the pejorative term given to that campaign money that isn’t directly given to a candidate. Because an individual can only directly give a candidate a small amount ($400 to a state House candidate for instance) this is how campaigns now get financed.
Often who provides that money isn’t publicly disclosed. The fear of vengeful politicians once they get into a powerful position, like our president, is just one reason people want to be anonymous.
It’s popular for a candidate to rail against dark money while at the same time loving the benefit of it because, well, politicians, that’s why. Take our affable Attorney General Phil Weiser.
During his campaign, Weiser wrote, “As a candidate, I will call on any group spending money on my behalf to disclose their donors, so Colorado voters know who is seeking to influence them.” Adding, “I am proud to run a transparent and people-powered campaign …Together, we will overcome the corrosive influence of dark money … .”
He even scolded the Republican Attorney Generals Association for their dark money in the race. “Dark money — from undisclosed, out-of-state companies — is a threat to our democracy. And it’s coming to Colorado this fall from the Republican AG Association.”
Interesting then that Weiser didn’t call out the out-of-state dark money that helped him win his race. #GlassHouseMeetRock
As reported by Sherrie Peif on the news site CompleteColorado.com (disclosure, it’s associated with Independence Institute, which I run), the progressive, Sixteen Thirty Fund funneled $600,000 in dark money into the effort to elect Weiser. The donation was to Justice Colorado Independent Expenditure Committee which had the sole purpose of electing Weiser to the AG’s office.
I don’t recall Weiser condemning his dark money windfall, no less demanding they reveal their donors. And Phil, doing so after the fact doesn’t count.
In fact, the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s dark money spilled nearly $11 million into the progressive side of Colorado elections, everything from campaigning for Jared Polis to urging lawmakers to end payday loans.
The best way to discourage the dark money politicos like Weiser, who claim they abhor it but really rely upon it, is to repeal the oppressive campaign limits that forced big money into politics.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a libertarian-conservative think tank in Denver.
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Using that term is akin to saying that a rash of drunken driving fatalities is due to a “car epidemic.” This avoids putting responsibility on those who engage in violent behavior. It seems that some people go out of their way to excuse violent behavior. Perhaps a couple of cases will illustrate this point:
Nathan Dunlap has been on death row for more than 20 years for the murder of four people in 1993.
Gov. John Hickenlooper granted him a temporary reprieve in 2013, and now he will likely escape the death penalty altogether because our state legislature has voted to abolish it.
James Holmes murdered 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, was found legally sane to stand trial and was ultimately convicted. During the sentencing phase, “one” juror would not budge from her position that mental illness caused his actions.
For those who don’t believe the death penalty is a deterrent, please note how many defendants plead guilty in return for the death penalty being taken off the table. It has also served as a tool to convince murderers to reveal information about their victims so that families can find some closure.
Many people have faced dire poverty, unfair treatment, being bullied or belittled. However, most people do not consider these issues an excuse to go out and murder their fellow citizens.
Frank Edwards, Littleton
I’m a junior at Cherry Creek High School. The sad truth is that some days I’m scared to come to school. Our society needs to figure out a way to prevent these shootings and inspire children to think in more positive ways. I agree 100% with the editorial and believe that parents and adults should be called as mentors for children. Most teenagers and kids look up to famous stars, but not very many look up to parents or members of their community as a positive influence.
Hannah Eckerman, Centennial
The unthinkable amount of deaths that guns have caused in America has made me and others numb to hearing news of yet another death. It is great to see Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver Public Schools making efforts to try to change this, and mentoring is a great start. However, something bigger is needed.
It’s not just kids who are begging for the attention of our government, it’s mothers, fathers, teachers and anyone else who cares about the safety of their loved ones.
I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about adopting our rescue puppy Becky when my wife, Jenna, broached the subject. Becky was 24 hours away from being euthanized at a kill shelter in New Mexico before she ended up as our babysitter’s foster dog through The Good Dog Rescue in Westminster. She was four months old, malnourished, terrified, had severe kennel cough and seemed to have been physically abused.
Becky is 75% pit bull and 25% boxer.
Since her arrival six months ago, she has filled our family with love and devotion. Dogs like Becky must not be persecuted by misguided government regulations.
If we lived in Denver County instead of in Arapahoe County, we wouldn’t be able to keep Becky. Opposition to breed bans has been expressed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, The Humane Society and the ASPCA. Also, the Center for Disease Control and the American Bar Association are against breed bans, which can discourage objectivity from animal control workers leading to unfair treatment. The bans are so narrowly focused, they don’t take into account owners’ treatment of the animals or other violations such as not abiding by a leash.
Irresponsible owners and those who abuse animals must be held accountable. I urge the county of Denver to overturn the ban.
Moving forward, I urge Gov. Jared Polis to adopt a law prohibiting Colorado towns from regulating dogs according to breed.
Please consider adopting a dog. Together, we can all benefit from the love that adoption brought to our family.
Walker Stapleton, Greenwood Village Editor’s note: Stapleton is the former Colorado treasurer and gubernatorial candidate.
There was dried blood on my neighbor’s driveway after a pit bull from two doors away got away from its owner on Valentine’s Day and attacked my neighbor’s dog, Taz, and my neighbor. An electric collar did nothing. The pit bull was eventually thwarted by another neighbor, who used a shovel on its head and in its mouth.
The pit bull had been adopted two months ago; it was relinquished to animal control after the incident.
Taz was treated and released by the VCA Highlands Ranch Animal Speciality and Emergency Center. My neighbor was treated and given a tetanus shot at another clinic.
The rejection of the pit bull ban in Denver was met with opposition because of the standard argument: It’s not the breed, it’s the owner. Tell that to Taz.
The owner of the pit bull is a conscientious homeowner, and I am sure she adopted the pit bull with the best of intentions.
While Douglas County police investigated, I could see the shovel stuck in a snow pile next to the driveway, a reminder of the traumatization of the neighborhood as a result of a breed-specific attack.
I appreciate that sponsors of the FAMLI Act are reconsidering their next steps on a paid leave program in Colorado. For small-business owners like me, we and our employees must have access to a paid family leave program that’s affordable and readily available to everyone.
But the private insurance model that’s been proposed would be an expensive and administrative burden my business simply can’t afford. Additionally, as a proud member of the LGBTQ community, I’d like to ensure the bill’s definition of “family” is inclusive to all types of family structures.
I hope legislators will reflect on these issues and take into account the needs of small-business owners.
Kamiya Willoughby, Denver
The family paid leave bill is a top Democratic priority, presumably because they believe it is the right thing to do. (We could have a reasoned discussion about whether it is the right thing to do, or if it is blatant over-reach by nanny-state collectivists. Here’s a hint: It’s the latter.) The Democrats control the state House, Senate and the governorship. Nothing is stopping them from passing the bill, right? But according to Sen. Faith Winter and Rep. Matt Gray, they haven’t been able to satisfy the well-funded and politically connected.
In other words, they are afraid that passing the bill will make it more difficult to maintain power.
This is prima facia evidence that a politician’s number one job and number one concern is to be re-elected.
Brian Vande Krol, Denver
If parents do not have paid maternity or paternity leave, they are forced to send their child to day care, get them a nanny, or have another person look after them because they can’t sacrifice their paycheck. Maternity and paternity leave is vital to help babies develop, yet this right is not guaranteed for everyone.
Babies need their mother after birth, and jobs are keeping them away from each other.
Not having maternity leave is forcing mothers to work when eight to nine months pregnant even if they can barely walk, to attend work just weeks after giving birth, and to be separated from their child — all to make ends meet.
Mothers and fathers need to be there for their babies. Paid maternity and paternity leave would make a happy, healthier life for a new family and also help babies develop. These families need paid leave to take care of their child, and it can’t wait any longer.
So, Krista Kafer, “while languishing in the daily bottleneck at the Santa Fe Drive and Interstate 25 interchange,” how many passengers were sharing your ride?
It’s clear to me that the only “conspiracy” here is that Colorado is a low tax effort state. We don’t generate enough money to fund our schools, roads, parks or police. Taking from one program to Band-Aid another will not solve our state’s current problems, much less position us for a thriving future.
The answer is a dedicated transportation funding source. But then, I’m not “breathing fumes;” maybe that’s why the answer is so clear.
Robert Kunkler, Golden
Krista Kafer suggests that Democrats made a poor decision to spend $27 million to expand preschool subsidies for the expansion of full-day kindergarten in lieu of funding our transportation needs.
As the principal of a diverse public elementary school in Broomfield, I can tell you firsthand that students living in poverty have a greater chance of moving out of poverty when they are afforded access to preschool and full-day kindergarten. Our hard working teachers can only do so much to close the inevitable gaps some students come to us with, and these programs help to even the playing field for all Coloradans.
So, yes, Krista, with a finite pool of resources at the state level, my preference is that we fund education over roads any day.
Tanya Santee, Louisville
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Last week, President George W. Bush made a rare departure from the political sidelines so he could deliver a much-needed message meant to unify our country in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Like his father before him, 43 has often been reluctant to jump into the political fray these days preferring to spend his days clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford or painting in his art studio.
The president with intent and purpose lauded the first responders and front line workers who have sacrificed their own safety in order to help others struggling with this dreadful virus. He singled out the great spirit of volunteerism that remains alive and well in a country under siege from an invisible enemy. He called on Americans to find creative new ways to connect with others who are struggling and in need of help. For President Bush, the current crisis echoes 9/11 when America was tested like never before and briefly, united like never before as we stared down a common enemy. The former president spoke up because he believes our country is in desperate need of unity and yet “united we stand” seems hard to find these days.
But if we take the time to look for inspiration, examples abound right here in our backyard.
— George W. Bush Presidential Center (@TheBushCenter) May 2, 2020
The president’s message, delivered on the Bush Presidential Center Twitter feed made it impossible not to think about Coloradans like Paul Cary, the selfless grandfather and medic who volunteered to help the most vulnerable among us far away in New York. He paid the ultimate price for his service, but his grandchildren will tell their grandchildren that he died a hero upholding the spirit of volunteerism that makes America great.
Make 4 Covid, a joint venture between Anschutz Medical Center and MSU Denver is using groundbreaking 3D printing technology to make personal protective equipment for medical personnel and first responders on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. Clinical trials of the potentially game-changing antiviral Remdesivir are going on right now at UC Health. National Jewish Hospital continues to lead the way on diagnostic testing for this novel virus. So much good is being done by Coloradans in the midst of so much pain and suffering in our country.
So it was heartening to hear President Bush call on all of us to put aside our differences. I found it equally confusing and disappointing that our current president chose to knock the message and the messenger. This virus should serve to humble each and every one of us as we are all susceptible to its impact, even President Donald Trump. This virus knows no allegiance to political parties or ideologies and this scourge has nothing to do with President Trump’s impeachment, no matter how you felt about the trial. This is no time to be partisan, petty and small. Rather, it is a time to stand tall and to use the mantle of the presidency to unite the country across our political spectrum. It is time to inspire citizens to help the elderly, the ill and the unemployed. Those Americans most impacted by this pandemic.
Here in Colorado, we can benefit from President Bush’s message of reconciliation as it reminds us how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. We are not meant to be defined on this earth as partisan combatants. We are human beings, we are Americans and we are Coloradans. We are vulnerable to this virus, but at the same time, we are capable of selfless acts of brotherhood and sisterhood. We are all equally capable of greatness towards one another. Together as Coloradans, let us rise together to meet and overcome this great challenge.
Walker Stapleton is the president of SonomaWest Holdings. He served as Colorado’s treasurer from 2011-2019 and was the Republican nominee for governor in 2018. He is President Bush’s cousin.
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Growing up in the 1960s in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, Tamara Rhone remembers overhearing her mother discussing nascent efforts to rename Stapleton airport, an ode to a former city mayor — and member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Thirty years later, she remembers talking to Landri Taylor, the former chairman of Denver’s Democratic Party, about that same name, which was about to be given to a new neighborhood on the airport’s old site. Why couldn’t they nip this in the bud before the first house was even occupied, she wondered.
The name stayed.
It’s been half a century since Rhone overheard her mother talking about the Stapleton name, a name that has prompted years of activism, neighborhood infighting, controversial votes and anguish among the city’s black population — but until now, no action.
“It’s taken a heck of a long time,” Rhone said. “If you haven’t grown up black in America, you can’t fully feel what that stuff feels like.”
Last Sunday, in the wake of landmark protests against systemic racism and police brutality in Denver and across the country, Stapleton’s neighborhood delegates announced they would support changing the name, setting in motion a series of votes and discussions about what the new name should be and how it should be decided. The Stapleton family says they support the change, as does Mayor Michael Hancock and the neighborhood’s developers. The historic announcement has elicited cheers and celebration, but also frustration and anger over the process.
Still, community members have noticed a shift in public opinion that has them hopeful for the future.
Who was Benjamin Stapleton?
While the neighborhood itself is less than two decades old, the history — and controversy — behind Stapleton goes back nearly a century.
Benjamin Stapleton was a lawyer, a veteran of the Spanish American War, and a United States postmaster general before he ran for mayor in 1923 with the KKK’s support.
The Klan was not just a hate-group in those times — it was an integral piece of Denver’s political machine, said Phil Goodstein, a Denver historian who wrote “In The Shadow of the Klan: When the KKK Ruled Denver.” And Stapleton was quick to get in their good graces.
He grew close with John Galen Locke, the founder and Grand Dragon of the Colorado Klan. When Stapleton had a son, he named Locke his godfather, Goodstein said.
In 1924, Stapleton stood atop South Table Mountain in Golden, where Locke warned the new mayor that he needed to heed the policies of the Klan.
“Stapleton says, ‘I will do whatever the Klan wants me to do,'” Goodstein said.
Stapleton ultimately served five terms as mayor during the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. In 1944, the city honored its former mayor by renaming Denver Municipal Airport to Stapleton Airfield.
Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library
The Ku Klux Klan marches down Larimer Street in Denver in 1926. Benjamin Stapleton was a member of the KKK when he was elected mayor in 1923, and Stapleton International Airport was later named for him, as was the neighborhood that was built there after the airport closed in 1995.
How to change a neighborhood
There have been several unsuccessful pushes over the years to change the name. After the airport was decommissioned in 1995, a group known as the “Rename Stapleton Committee” fought to keep the name off any future developments. In 2015, Black Lives Matter 5280 helped reignite activism. Two years later, “Rename St*pleton for All” came along, leading to a community vote last August.
The vote failed 65% to 35%, though only one-third of residents voted and renters were not included.
But everything changed last month. Protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police prompted outrage across the country, fueling not only days of marches but sustained energy from segments of America who never previously engaged with race.
Colorado lawmakers quickly passed one of the most sweeping police accountability bills in the nation. That same day, June 13, Denver Public School board member Tay Anderson, who has also spearheaded many of the city’s recent protests, tweeted that neighborhood delegates had one week to change the name or activists would march through their neighborhood.
On Sunday, the association said it intended to change the neighborhood name once and for all, and on Wednesday unanimously voted to recommend a name change to Stapleton’s registered neighborhood organization.
During Wednesday’s meeting, delegates detailed their personal, and sometimes emotional, transformations on the issue.
Josh Nicholas said he used cost reasons and a lack of a new name to justify voting against the change last year. But then he felt the tide shift, along with his own feelings.
“Just this week I was talking to a friend, and she said, ‘Josh, I love you, but I don’t feel comfortable bringing my daughter to Stapleton — it just doesn’t feel welcoming to me,'” Nicholas recounted during Wednesday’s delegate meeting. “And that broke my heart … for her and her daughter to not want to see their Uncle Josh because they don’t feel welcome where I live, that hurt.”
As a Mexican-American and member of the LGBTQ community, Nicholas said he’s felt hate in his own community.
“I thought, well, changing the name is not going help that,” he said. “But changing the name sends the message that’s it’s not OK, and it will never be OK.”
The Stapleton family has also expressed a change of heart. Walker Stapleton, the former state treasurer and Republican gubernatorial candidate, tweeted last week that if “changing a name brings more equity, fairness and opportunity for Denverites and specifically Coloradans of Color, I’m all IN.”
While the will to finally rename Stapleton is shared by every group and institution needed to sign off, there’s still plenty of red tape. The Stapleton United Neighbors is forming a committee to help whittle down a list of more than 80 options for names into a manageable list for the community to pick from.
Then, the community will get to decide on a new name either through a bracket-style competition — where names will be eliminated in a series of head-to-head votes — or through an advisory board, which would elicit community suggestions and come up with eight finalists to put for a community vote.
By Aug. 1, the committee plans to have a name selected to be presented for approval to the neighborhood developers, Brookfield Properties Development, which has indicated it supports the change. Denver would also have to approve of the name. The city has already begun removing references to Stapleton in their public GIS maps, city plans and codes, Mike Strott, spokesman for the mayor’s office, said in an email.
One of the most popular suggestions has been Westbrook, in honor of Dr. Joseph H.P. Westbrook, a black man who infiltrated KKK meetings in the 1920s to warn Denver’s black community about their plans. Other nominations include Justina Ford, the city’s first African American female doctor.
Denver Post file photo
In this 2012 file photo, encroaching residential construction has lead to debate of what to do with the control tower of the old Stapleton International Airport. The structure is the only unused structure left of the airport that closed in February 1995.
Community reactions
Black Lives Matter 5280 this week initially reacted to the news with jubilation. Organizers quickly put together a “ChangeTheName Victory Lap Car Rally” for Wednesday night, with plans to drive from Denver’s oldest black church, Shorter Community AME Church, into Stapleton to celebrate the win. The group encouraged participants to decorate their cars with suggestions for the new name.
But hours before the event, organizers canceled. Victory, it seemed, had not yet been achieved.
Amy Brown, co-founder of Black Lives Matter 5280, said the lack of transparency from the various neighborhood groups has been hurtful and the information delivered misleading. Black voices have been silenced, she said.
“We’re very clearly seeing the type of gatekeeping that can happen in these sorts of decision-making processes,” Brown said. “We’re watching in front of our very eyes, the system and systemic racism and the silencing of the black community.”
The neighborhood name change will happen, Brown believes, “but it will happen for the wrong reasons.”
“It will happen for embarrassment and PR,” she said. “In the midst of one of the most prolonged periods of community grief, the celebration aspects have been stripped from us.”
Timothy Tyler, pastor at the Shorter Community AME Church, said he didn’t know if the evolving sentiment surrounding Stapleton’s name is genuine, but he’ll take the change regardless.
“We’re happy it’s happening, but it’s not the end of systematic racism as we know it,” Tyler said. “It’s still a marathon, not a sprint.”
Neighborhood residents have also sensed a major shift in recent weeks. Facebook groups en masse suddenly pulled the “Stapleton” name off their page. Signs were covered, logos changed.
Ryan Haig moved to the neighborhood in November, mainly to be closer to the Pepsi Center to watch his beloved Denver Nuggets. He had no knowledge of Stapleton’s history until he saw signs on people’s lawns seeking to change the name.
The history hit the 24-year-old personally: His great-grandfather was a KKK member in Tennessee. When he found out that he’d moved to a neighborhood with that connection, Haig was eager to help get it changed.
“It makes me happy to live in a community open to change no matter how big or small it is,” he said.
Fighting to remove the neighborhood’s name almost led Brooke Lee to pack up and move.
“Once I became vocal about it, neighbors who had been very friendly would stop me in the middle of the street and give me a piece of their mind,” Lee said. “I got sworn at in front of my daughter. My daughter stopped getting invited to birthday parties she used to go to.”
But the landscape changed after Floyd’s death. Lee used to compile a photo album of all the people in the neighborhood who validated someone’s experience, who went out of their way to show they were an ally.
“I stopped keeping that album because it’s every day now,” she said. “I really believe there’s been a shift. You won’t hear ‘we’re done now’, but I’ve never been more hopeful for the culture of our neighborhood.”
Two years ago, I predicted a blue wave would sweep Colorado’s midterm elections. Colorado voters, I opined, were poised to award Democrats with a political trifecta: control of the office of governor, and state House and Senate.
It turned out to be a tsunami as voters elected Democrats to every statewide office. Newcomer Jason Crow also unseated five-term Congressman Mike Coffman.
Yes, I’m a Democrat who gives to Democratic candidates, but my opinion was based on the available data and the political science of the moment.
In looking back, perhaps the better metaphor might have been to call this a human triggered avalanche. That human is Donald Trump and his political shadow is the Trump effect.
Simply put, 2018 was a referendum on President Donald Trump. A post-election poll conducted by Magellan Strategies found that one-third of unaffiliated voters said they were less likely to vote for a Republican candidate because of Trump’s influence.
These words by Coffman, who had never lost an election in his 30-year political career, foreshadowed the trouble ahead for the Colorado Republican party: “I knew that my only hope of winning was to localize the race to a referendum on my leadership, and that if the race was nationalized as a referendum on the president, then I simply could not win this race,” Coffman said after calling Congressman Crow to concede.
As Labor Day kicks off the final stretch of the election, Republicans should brace for another avalanche.
Toxic Trump will have a catastrophic downward effect for Republicans again.
Trump, who lost to Hillary Clinton by 5 points in 2016, is wildly unpopular. His Colorado approval ratings have ranged recently from 35% to 40%. During his entire presidency, they have never climbed above 45%.
In 2016, party registration gave Democrats 32%, Republicans 31.5% and unaffiliated voters 35%. Four years later, both parties have a declining share. And, while Democrats have a slight advantage over Republicans (30% to 27.5%), the rise of the unaffiliated voter, with a 41% share, will ultimately determine the winners and losers in this election cycle.
To fully understand this shifting dynamic, there has been an increase of 268,222 active registered voters since 2016. Republicans have lost 57,967 voters and Democrats have only gained 26,593 voters, but unaffiliated voters have increased by a whopping 300,963 total voters.
The Magellan Strategies post-election poll also projected that 55% of unaffiliated voters would support the future Democratic candidate with only 23% supporting Trump.
Today, 58% of Colorado’s unaffiliated voters are between the ages of 18 and 44 years old. These voters, like Democrats and women, remain highly energized to vote.
Biden, who has a double-digit lead, will easily win Colorado. Independent voters in the Morning Consult poll, conducted from Aug. 21 to Aug.30, favor Biden by 25 points.
Trump’s unpopularity will have a statewide ripple effect. Trump reportedly has not reserved television ad time and will not be spending significant money in Colorado which would have put money in the field, on digital media and benefitted down-ballot Republicans with voter turnout.
Trump can still give out free endorsements, but in most parts of this state, they come with a price. Ask Walker Stapleton if he thought Trump’s endorsement helped him in his 2018 bid for governor or Congressman Scott Tipton who lost last month in a primary.
And, in the main Colorado event, the Trump effect will only hurt Sen. Cory Gardner’s re-election campaign. Gardner, who, according to FiveThirtyEight has voted with Trump 89% of the time and received a “complete and total endorsement” from Trump, is down 9 points in his Senate race against Hickenlooper.
Hickenlooper has maintained a lead, in spite of the barrage of negative ads which started during his primary and has a 29-point lead amongst independent voter in the same Morning Consult poll.
Congressman Crow (6th CD), a veteran-turned Trump impeachment manager, likely benefitted from that role, and is a safe bet to win his re-election campaign.
Lauren Boebert (3rd CD) who has done a full embrace of Trump, has put in play a safe congressional seat for Republicans, where she is in a close race with Diane Mitsch Bush.
Democrats will not only continue to hold majorities in the state House and Senate, they are likely to add seats to their majorities.
Things may change in 2022 when Trump is not on the ballot and the state has new congressional and legislative maps. In the meantime Colorado Republicans should prepare for another natural political disaster.
Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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President Donald Trump has nominated Gino Campana, a former Fort Collins city councilman and real estate developer, to a little-known federal board tasked with selling federal property.
Campana, who also chairs the Larimer County Republican Party, was chosen to chair the Public Buildings Reform Board, a panel created in 2016 with the sole goal of selling billions of dollars of federal buildings that are unused or underused.
“It is non-partisan and it is difficult to find an argument against it,” Campana said of the board Friday. “We’re determining underutilized assets, figuring out how to sell them, and maximizing proceeds for our federal government. Everybody wins.”
Gino Compana, of Fort Collins
Campana said he reached out to the Trump administration and asked how he can be of assistance. After an interview and a few conversations, the Presidential Personnel Office got back to him and mentioned the PBRB, which he had not heard of. After reading about it, he thought it was a perfect fit. A background check was done and his nomination was announced by the White House on Nov. 24.
Campana might have a calendar problem, however. The chairmanship requires U.S. Senate confirmation and there are only a few weeks remaining in the 116th Congress. If Campana is not confirmed before Jan. 20, President Joe Biden could nominate someone else for the position next year.
“People ask me all the time, ‘Is this going to happen?’ and I tell them, ‘I have no idea and no control over it,’” Campana said with a laugh.
“That’s definitely a concern of mine. I’m not sure if others are as concerned because there are so many other things going on right now. But it is a concern.”
The PBRB was created by bipartisan legislation that passed unanimously through Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama in the waning weeks of his presidency. It will sunset in 2025 unless extended by Congress.
Late last year, the board, which has a full-time director and staff, submitted an initial list of properties valued at more than $500 million it believes should be sold. High on the list is what remains of the Denver VA Medical Center, a largely vacant complex near the Rose Medical Center. Since a VA hospital opened in Aurora in 2018, the Denver center has only housed a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic.
The PBRB expects to sell eight acres — about 530,000 square feet, plus an eight-story parking garage. The federal government spends nearly $4 million annually maintaining its mostly vacant buildings there.
“It’s ripe for redevelopment,” Campana said. “It’s severely underutilized.”
Money from that sale, and others facilitated by the PBRB, will go into a fund for constructing and maintaining federal buildings across the country.
Campana founded Bellisimo, a Fort Collins development company, and has spent 25 years in the real estate industry. He was elected to the Fort Collins City Council in 2013, served one term, and was a finalist to be gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton’s running mate in 2018, before Stapleton chose Lang Sias instead.
The Jefferson County GOP began its annual assemblies in the 1990s by asking all elected Republicans in attendance to say a few words.
“It was not uncommon for it to take an hour to get through all of those speeches,” said Rob Fairbank, the former state representative from Littleton.
Now, said Rob Witwer, former attorney for the Jefferson County GOP and also a former state lawmaker, “It would take five minutes. You could fit all the elected officials in a phone booth.
“And that,” he adds, “in a nutshell is the trajectory of the party over the past 25 years.”
This is a low point for the Colorado GOP, now with less electoral power than at any time since World War II. Democrats control both chambers of the statehouse by comfortable margins — 41-24 in the House, 20-15 in the Senate. The governor, attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state are all Democrats. Next year, both of the state’s U.S. senators and four of its seven U.S. representatives will be Democrats. In November, the University of Colorado Board of Regents, previously the last statewide body controlled by the GOP, flipped blue for the first time in 41 years.
Just 18 years ago, roughly the opposite was true.
The Denver Post examined data and spoke to more than 20 Republicans, including many current and former elected officials, and found most attribute the powerlessness of a party that was competitive here just a few years ago, and dominant as recently as 2002, to a mix of factors: allegedly mismanaged campaign money; fundamental disagreements within the party over its direction and message; the increasing strength of the Democratic Party; demographic shifts that contributed heavily to the GOP’s disadvantage in voter registration; and the unpopularity of President Donald Trump, whom one pollster referred to as a “rocket booster” for Colorado Democrats.
Eli Imadali, Special to The Denver Post
People gathering to celebrate the election of Joe Biden to be the 46th president of the United States were met with pro-Tump counter-protesters at the Capitol in Denver on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020.
Jefferson County, once firmly red and later a bellwether, is run by Democrats now. In fact, Democrats dominate the Denver area suburbs in general. Arapahoe, Adams, Broomfield, Jefferson and Douglas counties cumulatively went for Hillary Clinton by five points four years ago — on par with the statewide margin. This year, those counties combined went for Biden by more than 15 points.
That leaves the party in soul-searching mode. A slew of party bigwigs, such as U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, former House Minority Leader and current state Rep. Patrick Neville, outgoing U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner and incoming U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert have allied themselves with a far-right politics despite an electorate that’s now about 33% Democratic, 27% Republican and 40% independent. Those independents disproportionately lean left, favoring Joe Biden by about 25 points this year.
“You have to be a big tent,” said state Sen. Kevin Priola, a Henderson Republican and a moderate who outperformed Trump in his district by close to 10 points — a rare bright spot for the GOP. “You have to have a number of interests and voters and coalitions that support what you’re trying to do and how you’re trying to do it. Unfortunately, that idea has kind of been pushed out in some areas of the GOP in the prior decade. That philosophy has been seen as equivocating or being soft or not fighting enough.”
The disappearance of the Priola brand of politics within much of the GOP — he said he’s felt marginalized at times — and the electoral consequences of it, are perhaps best exemplified recently by the state House Republican caucus, where the GOP seat deficit in the chamber of 65 ballooned from three to 17 in just four years.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post
Republican Patrick Neville, then-state House Minority Leader, left, and state Rep. Tim Geitner, R-Falcon, right, along with other Colorado Republicans help take boxes of signatures off of a truck to deliver them to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in Denver on Nov. 12, 2019. Republicans gathered 200,000 signatures for a ballot initiative requiring any Coloradan who votes to be a U.S. citizen. The ballot initiative was approved by voters in the Nov. election.
House money and leadership in question
Whatever other problems the GOP faced, they appeared to culminate in the election of undisciplined or otherwise fringe candidates in safe seats over the last decade, said Frank McNulty, former Republican speaker of the Colorado House.
That fund is meant to protect sitting Republicans, attract new candidates and contribute to their campaigns. Members of the caucus across the state add to its balance, so it’s meant for the entire group.
The new minority leader renamed the fund “Values First Colorado” and registered the account to his brother, Joe Neville.
He also fired the old advertising vendor — who would send out mailers, buy media ad spots and more — and hired his brother’s company, Rearden Strategic.
“I said ‘OK this looks bad, but I won’t be upset if they win,’” said former Republican state lawmaker Greg Brophy, from Wray.
They didn’t win. House Republicans lost five seats in 2018 and broke even this year. Not since Lyndon Johnson’s presidency has their deficit been so great.
“You start looking at the money transfers and the way they hid expenditures so you can’t even tell what the money’s being spent on,” Brophy added.
After the 2018 losses, some House Republicans — including Rep. Jim Wilson of Salida — raised an eyebrow over retaining the Rearden connection.
Joe Amon, The Denver Post
Republicans gathered at the Denver Marriott South to watch Election Night results return on Nov. 6, 2018. Republicans suffered across the board losses.
“I said, ‘You know, with the Broncos, if the coach goes 1-11, you don’t hire that coach back,’” Wilson said.
But the checks to Joe Neville’s company kept coming.
Since November 2017, Values First cut at least $207,800 in checks to Rearden Strategic, campaign finance filings show. In addition, the House fund gave two other committees run by Joe Neville — Citizens for Secure Borders IEC and Take Back Colorado — at least $274,200 and $545,000, respectively.
In turn, Take Back Colorado has paid Rearden at least $306,554 between May and November of this year, the finance documents show. And Citizens for Secure Borders has paid Rearden at least $140,873.
Values First also wrote three checks in 2018 worth a total of $363,000 to Colorado Liberty PAC, controlled by Neville ally and Rearden employee Aaron Yates, the financial documents show. Between 2018 and 2019, Yates’ PAC transferred at least $340,271 back to Rearden. Yates did not return messages seeking comment.
That means in a little over three years, Rearden Strategic cashed in just under $1 million from those four funds alone.
Corporations created by Neville ally Matt Arnold — Values First’s designated filing agent — also received at least $21,250 in “consultant and professional services” payments from the House fund between 2019 and 2020, state filings show. Arnold did not return a call seeking comment on those expenditures.
Several House Republicans told The Denver Post the money was not spent in a transparent manner.
Rep. Larry Liston said he felt embarrassed on behalf of those who contributed to the funds and received nothing.
“There was no oversight, there was no input and the money was not spent on the appropriate candidates at the appropriate times,” Rep. Lois Landgraf said. “There are candidates who should certainly feel cheated and the caucus overall should feel cheated.”
Neville did not return a call from The Denver Post but in a series of text messages said he and his brother were transparent with the Values First cash. He’s also quick to note that House Republicans maintained their net total number of seats this year despite being largely outspent by Democrats, and he wrote that he’s “proud of what we did.”
Joe Neville said the 2018 and 2020 elections were difficult for Republicans all over and his company did the best it could. He also acknowledged that Rearden did not earn the House’s vending contract through a competitive bidding process in 2018 or in 2020.
“We weren’t trying to take money and fleece anybody, that’s not the goal,” Joe Neville said. “Did it work out? No. And now it’s somebody else’s turn.”
Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post
Former state Rep. Justin Everett is pictured on April 14, 2018.
Priorities and infighting
Some payments from Values First were interpreted by House Republicans as an attack on a sitting member of their own caucus. Former state Rep. Justin Everett, an arch-conservative, and his company, Comma Consulting, received at least $17,500 from Values first between 2018 and 2020.
Everett was paid for some copywriting and marketing work, Joe Neville said, and the checks stopped once the former representative announced he would oppose incumbent Republican Rep. Colin Larson of Littleton in his primary this year.
Larson is young, relatively moderate and he’s shown he can win in the suburbs, unlike most of the rest of his party. And so the fact that he faced a challenge from the right this year from an old friend of the Nevilles disturbed many in the party.
“There’s no opportunity for any diversity of viewpoints within a party where any deviation from the most conservative line is considered heresy,” said Witwer, the former lawmaker and co-author of The Blueprint, a book about how Colorado Democrats rose to power. Witwer is now a registered independent.
“The roadmap is there for anybody who wants to follow it,” he added. “It was written by people like (CU Regent) Heidi Ganahl, Kevin Priola and Colin Larson. It’s a pragmatic form of conservatism, where people are strong on their principles but understand the need to communicate and work with people who might disagree with them.”
Larson fended off Everett’s challenge and said it’s still unclear what concrete product his opponent produced for the caucus money, and why Patrick Neville didn’t publicly rebuke the primary attempt.
“It’s the job of the Republican leader to defend his House caucus members,” Larson said.
Patrick Neville did not run for House minority leadership this year; though it was his choice not to run, he was effectively ousted by his own caucus, which replaced him with Hugh McKean of Loveland. The end result of his leadership, many in the party agree, is lost time, money and energy, translating to lost votes for Republicans at a time when they could least afford it.
Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file
Cory Gardner, with his wife Jaime, right, and daughter Alyson, left, are cheered by the crowd at a Colorado GOP Election Night party in Denver on Nov. 4, 2014, after Gardner beat incumbent Democrat Mark Udall in a closely contested race for a Colorado senate seat.
Pendulum swing
It was only six years ago in November that Colorado Republicans celebrated a mostly successful election. Cory Gardner had beaten Mark Udall in the U.S. Senate race. Wayne Williams had become secretary of state, beating now-U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a national rising star in Democratic politics. Cynthia Coffman won the race for attorney general by nine points, and Bob Beauprez lost narrowly to John Hickenlooper in the race for governor.
That feels like a lifetime ago, for many in both parties. All those big-ticket seats the GOP won in 2014 are now blue. And there’s real concern not just about the losses, but about how the state is trending. Colorado has the second-highest number of people with college degrees of all states, and the population growth here has been focused in urban areas that are trending away from the GOP. Even El Paso County, home of Colorado Springs and a Republican stronghold, is increasingly competitive; Trump won just 53.5% of the vote there this year, while Democratic strongholds got even bluer. Almost four in five Denver voters chose Biden.
“El Paso is the thing that, if I was a Republican, would’ve scared the (expletive) out of me,” said Craig Hughes, the longtime Democratic consultant. “They’re losing their base. And they’ve already lost the swing areas.”
It’s to the point, Hughes and several pollsters believe, that in a statewide election, a generic Democrat starts with a nine- or 10-point advantage.
“I think 2018 was basically plus-8, and 2016 was basically plus-4 and 2014 was minus-5,” Hughes said. “They’re in a very deep hole now.”
Added Brianna Titone, Democratic state representative from Arvada, and one of a slew of Democrats who’ve flipped previously comfortable Republican seats, “If the Republicans continue to go toward these ways of denying science and emboldening white nationalists — those kinds of things — the average suburban person, they don’t want that kind of stuff.”
Demographic and electoral shifts, in the suburbs and beyond, have lent urgency to a party searching for direction.
Part of the problem is that Republicans continue to ignore their own beyond the I-25 and I-70 corridors, said Kaye Ferry, an executive committee member for the state GOP and Eagle County Republican Party chair.
“They drive right past us on the way to Aspen to collect big checks,” Ferry said. “They’ve got 1,200 Republicans there last I checked. I’ve got 8,000 right here.”
Ferry is among a number of state party leaders keen to move on from the current state party chair, Ken Buck.
Rachel Ellis, The Denver Post
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Ken Buck takes notes during a debate against Democratic challenger Ike McCorkle at American Legion Post 82 in Elizabeth on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020.
Buck embodied much GOP infighting this year. He made national headlines in May after a recording showed him pressuring a local election official in El Paso County to submit incorrect election results to the secretary of state. And then the Weld County GOP chair mentioned one of Buck’s congressional aides in a complaint alleging election fraud and corruption. Buck did not grant The Denver Post an interview for this story.
Democrats passed the first complaint to the state board that regulates attorneys, asking them to disbar Buck. And the second was passed to the Attorney General’s office for additional investigation. Both generated bad press and a distraction at a time when Republicans said they should otherwise be focused on the 2020 election.
“He’s smarter than he looks because he wouldn’t have gotten elected anyway,” Ferry said. “He’s very unpopular.”
RJ Sangosti, Denver Post file
In this Nov. 3, 2010, file photo a wind battered Ken Buck campaign sign is in a field east of Greeley.
However the race for party chair turns out, there is a general feeling among many Republicans that without new leadership and a fresh vision they will continue to suffer.
“I firmly believe the Colorado GOP needs to have a deep bench and diverse bench and we need to field quality candidates that can compete with the Democratic candidates from the top of the ticket to the bottom,” Priola said. “That’s one area the Colorado GOP could focus on.”
Priola’s caucus will be entirely white next year, with one woman member. The statehouse Democrats, by contrast, are an increasingly diverse bunch, much more reflective of a diversifying electorate.
“There’s never been a circumstance where a candidate has been rejected based on their gender or their race,” said Sage Naumann, spokesman for the state Senate GOP. “We’re not going to tell someone who’s white, ‘Sorry, we have enough white people,’ but if we can show that we are a party that fights for all of Colorado, that diversity of candidates will be organic.”
Easier said than done, he and many others know. They’re encouraged that Coloradans continue to support fiscal conservatism through ballot measures, even as they reject conservative candidates. And they hope that a Biden presidency creates an opening for a red wave in 2022 — after all, recent history here shows just how quickly things can change — provided the party learns from its failures, especially those in the Trump era.
“If the extreme members of the Republican Party ever want to have power again,” Priola said, “they’re going to have to earn back the trust of the middle. And the middle, I would say, is larger than most realize it is.”
Talk to anyone running for office about why they feel confident they’ll win, and their answer will likely include that they’re a strong candidate facing a vulnerable opponent in a favorable environment.
Colorado Republicans feel that way about the state treasurer’s race this year, too. But they’re banking on a combination of softer factors to push Lang Sias, a former state representative and Walker Stapleton’s running mate in 2018, over incumbent Dave Young. One is a tendency by Colorado voters to drift conservative as they move down the ticket. The other, several Democratic and Republican insiders told The Denver Post, is a natural — if somewhat simplistic — association of the office with fiscal policy. In a year when Republicans are hammering at rising inflation costs, that perception, coupled with broader voting tendencies, could make the treasurer’s office particularly winnable for the GOP.
Democrats are less convinced, and Colorado isn’t as purple as it used to be. Young has been trying to address the information gap, said Morgan Carroll, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party: He’s worked to stress the importance of the race — and of the treasurer’s role in people’s everyday lives — to voters across the state.
“A lot of people don’t know about it,” she said.
The treasurer doesn’t set Colorado’s budget. The office doesn’t raise or lower taxes, and its holder has no control over interest rates or other specific monetary policies. The treasurer oversees the state’s investments and bank accounts. He or she sits on the board of PERA, the state’s public pension plan, and the treasurer is often tasked with implementing policies approved by the legislature.
But when people think treasury, they think fiscal policy, said Michael Fields, senior adviser to the conservative group Advance Colorado Action.
“I think part of it is the treasurer has to do with money and fiscal matters, and Colorado tends to lean fiscally conservative,” he said. “So that person has a platform to talk about taxes, spending, investments, stuff like that.”
So, that theory goes, with inflation so prominent, Colorado voters would want a conservative as the avatar of fiscal policy here, even if that’s just as a communicator.
That’s part of Sias’s pitch, too, he said in an interview with The Post: He wants to use his office as a “bully pulpit” to trumpet the economic impact of proposed policies. He also said he wanted to restore balance to state government, and he pledged to address the billions in PERA’s unfunded liability, which he said was key to attracting employers to Colorado.
He agreed that his race represented a potential win because of its association with fiscal policy and down-ballot bipartisanship. But Sias acknowledged there was only so much the office could do unilaterally to address economic issues — like inflation — directly. PERA, he said, is something the office can directly impact.
Asked if Sias represented the GOP’s best chance at winning a statewide contest this year, Carroll was unimpressed and said that had more to do with the strength of Republican candidates than on Sias’s particular appeal.
“That isn’t saying much,” she said
The race will be close, she continued, but she said that Young has been working hard, raising money and trying to bridge the key information gap — what exactly does the treasurer do? — with voters. Down-ticket races have been tough for Democrats in Colorado this century: Across the five statewide elections from 1998 through 2014, the Democrats won the governor’s mansion three times but lost nearly every down-ballot race each time. And 2018 represented a large shift there: Democrats won the governor’s race again, alongside the attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer.
In an interview with the Post, Young — who in his past life as a legislator had helped set the state budget as a member of the Joint Budget Committee — said he had a “record of success” over the past four years. He mentioned the CLIMBER program — a small-business loan effort — and the SecureSavings program — a state-sponsored retirement plan — as particular successes.
Carroll warned that Sias could intentionally derail those programs, which were both created by the legislature. Sias said he would run them as “enthusiastically” as possible but that the treasurer needed to be clear-eyed and honest about their potential; he twice voted against approving the SecureSavings program while serving in the House.
Sias noted that he had supported a sweeping — and heavily debated — 2018 bill that sought to fix PERA, which faced a $32 billion debt and, as a result, threatened the state’s credit rating. Young voted against that bill; he said in an interview he didn’t have enough information to know what impact the 2018 bill would have prior to being asked to vote on it.
The bill, which became law, requires the state to put $225 million per year into PERA, and it cut cost-of-living adjustments and increased per-paycheck contributions. Young said he thinks the law has had some positive impacts but still needs to be re-examined.
Young said that inflation is the reason the state, with his support, sent Coloradans their Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refund checks early this year. That move has drawn criticism from Sias and other Republicans, who’ve accused Young, Gov. Jared Polis and other Democrats of criticizing TABOR until it benefited them politically.
Young dismissed that allegation, though he said he supported replacing TABOR “with a rational policy that actually gets us to great outcomes as a state.” As other Democrats have said before, he criticized TABOR’s impact on education funding and said a different program would help the state address systemic problems.
He said he’s always acknowledged the checks were a product of TABOR (he did so in April and August press conferences) and that they were intended only to give Coloradans much-needed financial relief.
“I think I’ve made every effort to be honest with the public about what was being done,” he said. “And if people want to call that cynical, I guess that’s everybody’s opinion, they’re entitled to it. But at end of the day, what we’re trying to do is respond to dramatic price increases and inflation, not wait until six or eight months later.”
As for whether he represented the Republican’s best chance of capturing a statewide seat, Young said he was confident that wouldn’t happen. Even if you buy the theory that his office is naturally associated with conservative politics, he said, he’d won as a Democrat in conservative districts before.
“I’m very used to tough races,” he said. “I know how to win.”
Treasurer Dave Young won re-election Tuesday night over Republican challenger Lang Sias, winning what was considered the most vulnerable statewide seat held by Democrats and retaining the party’s rare hold on the office.
“I am humbled by the support and trust Coloradans have put in me to continue the work of the Treasury for the next four years,” Young said Tuesday night. “I ran for State Treasurer because I believe Colorado is at its best when our economy works for all, and I am excited to continue to work towards that goal.”
The loss is a blow to Republicans’ hopes of picking up a statewide contest and a sign of Democrats’ firm grip on the state’s electorate. Young’s seat was the one most targeted by the GOP heading into Tuesday, and they fared little better in their efforts to unseat Democrats holding the offices of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general. Young’s win in a midterm dominated by Republican issues further emphasizes just how blue the state has turned in recent years.
In a speech Tuesday night at a Republican watch party in Greenwood Village, Sias said he’d called Young and conceded. Young had opened an early and strong lead over his former legislative colleague Tuesday night, and by 9:40, his lead had extended to more than 167,000 votes.
Sias told the Post that voters weren’t splitting their ticket between candidates as much as they had. He said the state has become more “tribal” than before.
“It’s disappointing,” he said of his loss, “but we can also see what happened. I don’t think people are looking at individual races individually.”
Republicans had targeted the race because of dominant concerns about inflation and affordability, traits they had contended voters would associate with the GOP. Young’s fundraising fell far below other statewide Democratic candidates, and treasurer’s races — like down-ballot candidates generally here — often run behind top billers like Polis.
Young had touted his experience in fiscal policy at the state level and his execution of legislatively approved programs, like those designed to boost small businesses and give Coloradans retirement accounts. His office also oversees the state’s investment strategies and holdings.
Sias, a former Navy pilot and legislator who was Walker Stapleton’s running mate during his failed 2018 gubernatorial bid, had pledged to be a spokesman for conservative fiscal policy for the state, even if that extended to a largely rhetorical role. He raised repeated concerns about the state’s pension program, PERA (the state treasurer sits on PERA’s board). His loss continues a recent string of losses. Not only was he Stapleton’s running mate in 2018, but he lost a state senate primary in 2014. He had lost a general election for the same senate district two years prior.”
Thirty-six hours after Republicans suffered historic election losses in Colorado, and as elected members were regrouping, state Rep. Richard Holtorf, of Akron, framed the party’s position in heroic terms.
“I think of the Spartans and Leonidas, as the Persian army comes down to take over and destroy Greece and Sparta,” Holtorf said, referring to the legend of a vastly outnumbered — and doomed — group of Spartans who fought to hold off their opponents.
It was the first public regrouping of elected Colorado Republicans after an election that one described as a shellacking. The Republican candidates for the state’s top offices had just been swept, some by double-digits, by Democratic incumbents. Hopes on Tuesday that the GOP would narrow the Democrats’ majority in the state House of Representatives and maybe even flip the state Senate materialized Wednesday as losses.
The party, several officials said, must now undertake a full rebuild of its brand and approach in Colorado. While elected Republicans like Holtorf will face the immediate effect of this electoral failure, the losses were so historic that many of the party’s members are confronting an existential question: What’s next for Colorado’s Republican Party? If it can’t win now — in a midterm in which the dominant topics are bread-and-butter Republican issues like crime and the economy — when can they?
“Just about every Republican strategist, consultant, elected official and leader is asking right now: What’s the path forward?” Sage Naumann, a Republican consultant who’s recently worked in the state Senate and for U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea.
He characterized the election as one of “the most historic losses our party has ever endured,” one with few, if any, silver linings.
What went wrong
Depending on the Republican, the cause of or the solution to the party’s woes run through former President Donald Trump.
Naumann noted that unaffiliated voters make up a plurality of the Colorado electorate and that they’ve been trending decisively away from his party. And several members he described as more policy-oriented — not “bomb throwers” — lost or were losing races.
“Their losses are not contributed to their records, I can guarantee that,” Naumann said. “Their losses are because unaffiliateds said the party and anyone associated with it are not viable candidates.”
He attributed that to the “lingering effect” of Trump over the party and a focus on divisive issues, like banning abortion, that Colorado voters consistently reject.
“(There’s a) consistent focus on conspiracy theories and witch hunts, like that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and a lack of realization in the state of Colorado that on social issues, the people in the middle don’t agree with our party platform,” Naumann said.
Lang Sias, who lost his bid to unseat state treasurer Dave Young on Tuesday night, said the Republican brand has become “toxic” in Colorado. Part of that’s because of Trump, he said. Sias has been on the wrong side of two Democratic waves, having lost as Walker Stapleton’s running mate in 2018, and he acutely knows the consequences of being associated with the former president. The party needed to focus on solutions, he said, a stance echoed by Democratic insiders who blasted some Republicans’ embrace of conspiracies and election denialism.
But Sias, like Naumann, maintained that the party’s core values aren’t the problem.
“The Republican brand — whatever the Republican brand is — it’s not something that Colorado voters like that much,” Sias said. “Because I don’t think we were wrong … to focus on those kitchen table issues of the economy and crime and education.”
GOP candidate for State Treasurer Lang Sias, who was running against incumbent Dave Young, gives his concession speech during a GOP watch party at the DoubleTree Hilton DTC on Nov. 8, 2022, in Greenwood Village. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Meanwhile, Naumann said, bombastic Colorado Republicans, “who are in elected office because it’s fun to throw bombs and to quote-unquote own the libs” suck all the oxygen out of the room that could otherwise be used to help Colorado. And much of that is simply out of local and state Republican’s control, he said. It’s a monumental task to carve out a local identity when faced with those who have national microphones, and more interest in social media engagement and TV hits than the future of Colorado’s party.
Departing state Rep. Dave Williams, who’s been castigated by House leadership for being one of those bomb-throwers, called Tuesday night a “bloodbath.” He agreed that there was a problem with the Republican brand in Colorado, but he laid blame squarely on the party’s leaders.
“Those people, they were responsible for the image and the branding of the party this election cycle and probably before that as well,” he said. “In other words, they got everything they wanted — the establishment generally in this state got everything they wanted. They got the candidates they wanted, they got the messaging they wanted. … And they got these results. And I think we certainly have to place blame at their feet.”
A sign of that internal division flared among House Republicans on Thursday, just before Holtorf’s speech. State Rep. Stephanie Luck, of Penrose, was making the case that the caucus should elect her as their leader — and in her speech, apologized to members for “threats” some of them received the day before related to her candidacy.
Still, she told her fellow representatives, those messages came from “communication streams and networks that I have access to in order to rally the troops, to speak into bills that you are advancing, to speak into bills that we are opposing as a caucus.” Her apology-turned-enticement didn’t work, and Rep. Mike Lynch was elected minority leader instead.
Increased infighting won’t help the party’s brand, Republican officials said. But others questioned whether the state’s electorate had shifted fundamentally, thanks to liberal-minded out-of-staters moving in. That was the assessment of Kristi Burton Brown, the chairwoman of the Colorado Republican Party, on Tuesday night. Her candidates had run on the correct issues, she said, and would focus on them going forward.
“It’s just not what voters chose tonight,” she said.
COGOP Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown, center, gets a hug from her son Ryker, 9, with her daughter Areyna, 12, and her husband David Brown, right, by her side during a GOP watch party at the DoubleTree Hilton DTC on Nov. 8, 2022, in Greenwood Village. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
‘A rebuilding time’
State Sen. Paul Lundeen, of Monument, emphasized Thursday that a handful of races still hadn’t been called, so the official shape of his caucus wasn’t yet known. But it will have a big responsibility in rebuilding the Republican brand.
“It falls on us, this caucus, to strike forward and establish a new perspective on the Republican brand,” Lundeen said shortly after being named Senate minority leader. “An expansion if you will, on the Republican brand. What it means to make life more affordable, what it means to make our community safer, what it means to give parents more authority.”
Lynch, Lundeen’s equivalent in the House, struck a similar tone. He was beat Luck for House minority leader Thursday morning, in the wake of Rep. Hugh McKean’s death and Rep. Colin Larson’s surprising re-election loss. Lynch pledged to the remaining House Republicans to not “ever veer from our Republican principles. That is not what we do in the face of the defeat we had this week.”
He told the Post in an interview that he and other Republicans didn’t understand why the messaging on crime and economics hadn’t worked. Coloradans must not have reached a “pain point” yet, he said, adding that Democrats had been effective in their messaging on abortion. He thought voters “misinterpreted” the status of abortion access in Colorado and that Republicans “assumed voters knew stuff they didn’t.”
While he and others defended the party’s messaging and said it didn’t need to change, Lynch acknowledged that something has to.
“We look at this as a rebuilding time,” he said. “No doubt, the voters spoke very loudly that they want to see something different out of us, so we’re going to do some soul-searching and figure out what that looks like. I’d be an idiot to ignore that we just got shellacked.”
A man watches large television screens showing election coverage during a GOP watch party at the DoubleTree Hilton DTC on Nov. 8, 2022, in Greenwood Village. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Several other party officials used the term “rebuild” to describe what Colorado Republicans must do next. Williams, the departing state representative, likened the party to a flailing sports team that would need years of work before it could hope for a title shot. His fellow House Republican, Delta Rep. Matt Soper, said the party needed to embrace more libertarianism and capitalize on what he perceived as voters’ fiscal conservatism.
“From what I can tell by the way that voters behaved is we are a socially liberal state but a fiscally conservative state,” he said, “and as Republicans, that’s something we outta embrace just a little bit more.”
Sandra Hagen Solin, a longtime lobbyist with Capitol Solutions who represents business and law enforcement interests, said there needs to be a national rebranding. She, like most every political observer, had predicted more parity in the legislature.
The core of the Republican platform — a strong economy, an education system “that works for everyone” and public safety — is still strong and still resonates with most Coloradans, she said. But not as strongly as voters’ rejection of Trump-style politics.
“There needs to be a rebranding,” she said. “It’s not just a Colorado rebranding, but it’s a national conversation. But a rebranding can only be successful if there’s a receptivity to how Republicans are perceived.”
Naumann encouraged Republicans to focus on school choice and fiscal responsibility while working to find solutions. In the meantime, Republicans can still have a voice at the Capitol.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for Republicans to still play a role, even in the minority,” Naumann said. “There’s going to be a lot of legislators who want to say their bills are bipartisan.”
Senatorial candidate Joe O’Dea, with his wife Celeste, right, gives his concession speech during a GOP watch party at the DoubleTree Hilton DTC on Nov. 8, 2022, in Greenwood Village. Incumbent Senator Michael Bennet secured his re-election in Colorado by defeating O’Dea. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
And while both the senate race and governor’s race were big losses, he noted that O’Dea ran about 5 percentage points ahead of the Republican nominee for governor, Heidi Ganahl. O’Dea distanced himself from the Trump movement, didn’t want to ban all abortion and supported codifying same-sex marriage. It wasn’t enough to overcome the perception of the party overall, but it shows “a beginning of a pathway to legitimacy again.”
Naumann declined to call Colorado purple — unaffiliated voters are neither red nor blue, after all — preferring to describe it as a state where people value its institutions and their independence, however they may define it.
“Neither side expected this type of a landslide toward Democrats,” he said. “It’s up to our party to seriously look within to see that this never happens again. Unfortunately, with the losses we’ve seen, this is going to be a multi-election project to rebuild, if we’re willing.”
