Colorado GOP candidates gathered in Denver yesterday morning for a campaign kickoff billed as “Take Back Colorado.”
“Colorado Republicans and Independents put this team on the field and we’re going to get across the finish line in November,” said O’Dea. “If we stay right there, focusing on the kitchen-table issues that we hear about every day, and widening the tent, we win.”
The kickoff was hosted by Republican Senate nominee Joe O’Dea at his event venue Ironworks, and attended by a variety of top statewide candidates including gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl.
Appearing together at the podium, O’Dea and Ganahl emphasized the need for unity to win. “Folks who’ve never been involved in politics before say I want to support you, this is about our kids. Our kids are in crisis right now,” said Ganahl. “We want this to be a group effort.”
“This is the strongest slate of candidates we’ve had up and down the ticket in some time,” said Kristi Burton Brown. “Our candidates are business owners, military veterans, parents, with a passion to make Colorado more affordable, have safer neighborhoods, and better schools. Unaffiliated voters are looking to us to solve problems.”
Sources indicate the “Take Back Colorado” effort will be a coordinated joint effort between the O’Dea campaign and the Colorado GOP, designed to boost candidates up and down the ballot.
The Take Back Colorado campaign’s messaging appears to draw heavily from the Colorado GOP’s Commitment to Colorado, focusing on kitchen-table issues such as cost of gas, cost of living, and inflation.
Based on the tremendous rate of inflation in Colorado and a bevy of new fees that just went into effect courtesy of Gov. Polis, honing in on cost of living will likely be a fantastic issue for Republicans to campaign on this year.
Former State GOP Chair Congressman Ken Buck (R, CO-7) also addressed the attendees and committed his support to making sure GOP candidates up and down the ballot are elected in November.
Other candidates in attendance included Secretary of State nominee Pam Anderson, Congressional District 8 nominee Barbara Kirkmeyer, and various state legislature and local candidates.
Unaffiliated voters will be a key voting bloc for these candidates in order to win. In last Tuesday’s primaries, more unaffiliated voters voted in the Colorado Republican primary than ever before. According to the liberal Colorado Sun, more than 231,000 unaffiliated voters cast Republican primary ballots.
Some liberals have fretted in recent days that the surge of Unaffiliateds participating in the GOP primary could be a terrible omen for Democrats this fall.
Ted Trimpa, longtime Democrat consultant and famed architect of the Blueprint, told the Chuck and Julie Show he was very concerned Democrats may have pushed untold amounts of Unaffiliated voters towards candidates like O’Dea.
If the state party and O’Dea campaign’s Take Back Colorado effort is any indication, Republicans appear ready to capitalize.