What we would like to see, and what is actually happening, are often but not always two different things. Quite a few right-of-center voices contend that in this year’s midterm cycle, Donald Trump saddled the GOP with a bunch of hard-to-elect oddball rookie candidates who the former president endorsed because of personal loyalty, not because of their qualities as competitive candidates. There’s quite a bit of evidence to support that argument.
But the non-Trumpy choice in a Republican primary isn’t always a slam dunk, either. In Colorado, Joe O’Dea represented the more mainstream, non-Trump-endorsed GOP option in the Senate race against Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet. Democrats spent $4 million to bolster state representative Ron Hanks; O’Dea is one of the few GOP Senate candidates not endorsed by Trump.
And O’Dea has trailed consistently — he’s behind by 7.7 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average, and a new Marist poll out this morning has Bennet ahead, 48 percent to 41 percent. Back in 2016, Bennet won by six points; right now, it looks like Bennet will win reelection by a similar margin.
Colorado is now a blue state with a tinge of purple; when the circumstances are just right, like 2014, a high-quality GOP statewide candidate like Cory Gardner can just barely beat out a flawed Democratic candidate like Mark Udall. Yes, Trump’s brand of Republicanism is a bad match for Colorado. Hillary Clinton beat Trump in Colorado by five points; in 2020, Joe Biden won Colorado by 13 percentage points, and that year John Hickenlooper beat Gardner, 53 percent to 44 percent. But nominating the least-Trumpy candidate in the Senate race doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference.
Incumbent Democratic Governor Jared Polis isn’t sweating his reelection bid; Marist finds Polis leads his Republican challenger Heidi Ganahl by 18 points among registered voters statewide.
Outside Republican groups aren’t completely ruling out O’Dea’s chances . . .
The Senate Leadership Fund on Friday made a $1.25 million contribution to the pro-O’Dea super PAC American Policy Fund, an investment the group first confirmed with POLITICO. The spend is significantly smaller than SLF’s expenditures in other battleground states this year, though spokesperson Jack Pandol said they “aren’t closing the door on further investment” in Colorado, and are “keeping an eye on” the race against Sen. Michael Bennet.
. . . but an inability to pull even with a bland, generic Democrat like Bennet has to rank among the GOP disappointments of this cycle.