The Colorado Democratic Party is asking for it. They’ve spent this year attempting some irresponsible, undemocratic, and ultimately fruitless election chicanery. With few competitive primaries on their end (the big elections in the state this cycle are for governor and senator, both of which feature strong Democratic incumbents who faced no primary challenges), they decided to waste a lot of money propping up the more conservative candidates running in the respective GOP primaries with the hope of making the general election less competitive in this relatively Democratic-leaning state. Yep – you read that right – Democrats spent millions of dollars on television ads, text campaigns, and mailers in order to tip the results of the varying Republican primaries towards the farthest right candidate. And it proved a complete, absolute, and utter waste of time.

In the governors’ race, the GOP went with University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl, the only Republican statewide-elected official in the state and a strong fundraiser, instead of the Democratic-”supported” Greg Lopez, a businessman who peddles 2020 election conspiracies. And in the Senate race, Republicans ended up selecting businessman Joe O’Dea, who was a more moderate and financially-stable candidate, instead of the Democrat-”supported” state representative, Ron Hanks, another 2020 election conspiracist. Millions of Democratic Party dollars wasted to prop up anti-democratic fringe candidates… might make you think twice about supporting the Colorado Democratic Party, no? Yeah, oops. 

Anyways, O’Dea will face incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet in the fall. Bennet is sitting on about seven times as much money as O’Dea, and despite an ill-advised presidential run that he’d probably prefer everyone just forget about and a memorable explosion at Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s expense that he’d probably prefer everyone still remembered, Bennet is an understated-but-strong candidate in the Centennial State. Polls have consistently given Bennet a moderate advantage over any potential Republican challenger and Colorado may have moved far enough to the left for him to be considered a pretty safe bet to win. But the Democratic Party’s missteps, arrogance, and attempts at sleazy electioneering in Colorado run the risk of blowing a blue lead to a moderate Republican. Sound familiar, Virginia?

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