How worried is the GOP about the midterms in Colorado? Just follow the money.
Unlike longshot gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx, the now-well-known carnival barker/laughingstock, national Republicans are neither fasting nor praying to shift “the ideologies” in Colorado.
Fearing that the expected midterm Blue Wave may well hit hard in Republican-held congressional districts in Colorado, they’re taking the slightly more traditional route — sending money.
Not to Marx, of course. Marx, who called for a 21-day fast, says he is “in a spiritual battle against the forces of wickedness.” Who knew? I thought he was in a battle with Phil Weiser, although not much of one. The only real question in the race is whether Weiser wins by 20 points or 30.
The battle for the U.S. House, which Democrats are favored to win, is another matter altogether. I’d go as far to say that it’s existential. The only way to rein in Donald Trump even a little is for Democrats to win back the House and even possibly — more possibly, it seems, every day — the Senate.
And as you may have noticed, Republicans are facing an unpopular war, unpopular economy, unpopular tariffs, unpopular gas and diesel prices and an extremely unpopular president, whose approval ratings are somewhere in the mid-30s, which is only slightly higher than the flailing Colorado Rockies’ approval ratings.
When national Democrats said last month they were going all in on the four Republican-held congressional seats in Colorado, I was a little skeptical. Was it wishcasting? Was it just making sure that Republicans realized that Democrats realized just how shaky Republicans are in the state?
But now?
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Let’s put it this way. The Republican House Freedom PAC is sending $300,000 Lauren Boebert’s way.
That’s in the 4th Congressional District, easily the safest Republican district in the state.
If Republicans are worried about Boebert — I mean, I’m worrying about the canoodling carpetbagger myself, but not about her chances of losing in November — that means they’re worried about everyone.
They have cause.
The highly respected Cook Political Report acknowledged the chances of a wave by moving 15 House races toward Democrats on Friday, including the 5th CD race between Rep. Jeff Crank and Democratic challenger Jessica Killin. The 5th, which has been a forever GOP district, is now listed as “Lean Republican,” which means it’s rated just shy of a tossup.
And no one can be surprised. We’re seeing how Colorado Springs is rapidly changing demographically and El Paso County changing with it. We’re seeing how well Killin’s campaign is going. And everyone knows that if Democrats can win the 5th, there’s virtually no chance for Republicans to hold the House.
The 8th Congressional District, meanwhile, is rated as a tossup. It was drawn to be a tossup, and it has been in every election since the 8th became a district in 2022. Republican Gabe Evans, who won the last race in 2024 by a couple of thousand votes, will almost certainly face a close race again.
Evans is running against Manny Rutinel, a progressive (and no longer, he insists, a vegan) former state lawmaker — but not a Democratic Socialist. But Rutinel, who just resigned his state House seat to concentrate on the race, is apparently progressive enough for some Republicans to call him a communist anyway, because these are the times we live in.
That’s even as Donald Trump was elaborately hosting China’s leader, Xi Jinping, this week at the White House. Xi is, of course, the head of the Chinese Communist Party. In Trump’s embarrassing three-day suck-up to Xi, he praised him as a great friend while also praising the Chinese press, who tend to treat Xi with kid gloves, knowing that otherwise they’d end up not just banned like some U.S media, but in prison.
Like some of you, I’m old enough to remember when Trump said China had interfered in the 2020 election and was a global menace. How bad does Trump look here — and not just because Trump, the monument-building obsessive, took Xi and the rest of the state dinner guests on a post-meal tour of the ballroom building site?
It’s bad enough that Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi and chair of the Armed Services Committee, went to the Senate floor to remind Trump that Xi “is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”
Whatever happens with China, it’s obvious that Republicans need to concentrate on the 8th and 5th districts. But Trump’s PAC is also sending money to the 3rd CD to defend incumbent Jeff Hurd in his battle against former Aspen City Councilman Dwayne Romero. I’d have thought that the Cook Political Report would have had Hurd ranked as a safe candidate. Instead the district is listed as “Likely Republican,” which means that in a wave election, who really knows?
Cook has Boebert’s as the only “Safe Republican” seat in the state. (All four Democratic seats are listed as “safe.”) But Republicans apparently aren’t completely confident in her race against challenger Eileen Laubach, a retired Navy admiral. Maybe that’s because Boebert can’t keep herself, or her family, out of the news lately.
We know Trump is doing his best to bring his influence to bear. At the recent Republican midterm convention, he told the gathering that he wanted fair elections, but then — you gotta love this — he told Republicans, whether or not they are registered, to go out and vote and “cheat like hell.”
When Trump went after mail-in ballots, which go out next week, Colorado was one of his main targets. He tried to cheat like hell, but he lost that battle in the Supreme Court, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of voters no longer trusting the post office this year.
And we should definitely take the threat of Trump sending his jackbooted thugs from ICE to intimidate voters, especially Latino voters, seriously. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is taking it seriously enough that he has joined a lawsuit to stop ICE agents from going anywhere near the polls.
Not that a mere judge’s ruling would stop Trump, who could conceivably send the FBI or the National Guard or the military to the polls. It’s all in the range of possibility.
If any of these tactics sound a little like the supposed “wickedness,” that Victor Marx says he is facing, I don’t think prayer will help.
Voting, though, whatever intimidation you might face, may be all the help you need.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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