Colorado’s 4th Congressional District is predictably, intentionally a gimme for Republicans. It’s roughly 80% white and mostly rural and suburban. Only 17.7% of voters are registered Democrats while 37.1% are Republicans and a whopping 43.6% are unaffiliated.
But while nobody’s betting the farm on an upset, things are a whole lot more interesting in the flatlands this year than anybody might have anticipated before Ken Buck fled the dysfunctional U.S. House of Representatives to save his sanity in March.
This time it’s not the sleepy ho-hum election season as in the days when traditional conservatives Buck and Cory Gardner coasted to easy victories with little drama. No, this year it’s an unhinged MAGA spectacle on steroids.
So, fasten your seatbelts. These next few days before the June 25 primary surely will be a wild ride.
The best way to evaluate the options on the ballot is with the words of the candidates, and in advance of the election, The Sun has provided a convenient spreadsheet of their stated views on various issues.
Six candidates are vying for the Republican nomination: Richard Holtorf, Mike Lynch, Deborah Flora, Jerry Sonnenberg, Peter Yu and the runaway favorite given her name recognition, war chest and raunchy bad-girl appeal, Lauren Boebert.
On the ultimate litmus test: whether they will vote for the convicted felon and rapist Donald Trump for president, all of the candidate unequivocally said “Yes.”
Not a Liz Cheney-style profile in courage among them.
Still, this is pretty much where the unanimity ends, although they all appear to be climate change deniers to one degree or another. So, if you are looking for a leader to address the conditions that have resulted in such things as the $2 billion Marshall Fire and increased costs and reduced availability of homeowners insurance across the state and the nation, you’re out of luck with the candidates on the Republican slate.
They’re split on whether they would support a federal ban on abortion, with Holtorf, Lynch and Yu opposed and Sonnenberg, Flora and Boebert all in favor. All but Boebert support continued aid to Ukraine, and Boebert also stands alone in saying the 2020 election was stolen.
It gets even scarier when they identify federal agencies they want eliminated.
Sonnenberg wants to cut the CIA, which has certainly had its failures and controversies (appalling torture and abuse during the Iraq war, for one sickening example), but without a competent intelligence agency, U.S. defense departments, businesses, communications, elections and citizens would be sitting ducks.
Lynch wants to eliminate the whole Department of Justice, which I guess means the elimination of all federal laws since there would be no enforcement mechanism. Imagine a country without civil rights protections, food safety regulations, copyright laws, patents, the ability to prosecute corrupt federal officials.
And as for the immigration issue, the candidates are all over the map. While Boebert wants to unleash armies of federal agents to round up the estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants embedded in our communities and remove them from the country, Sonnenberg wants to come up with a way to give them an opportunity to stay, saying it’s a humanitarian issue. Holtorf wants to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants except for “fighting-age Middle Eastern males” whom he would have deported immediately to “those terrorist countries.”
Yikes.
Meanwhile on the Democratic ticket, Trisha Calvarese, John Padora Jr. and Ike McCorkle provide a stark contrast to the Republican hopefuls and The Sun’s handy guide once again offers details.
All support codifying the protections of abortion rights and reproductive rights including fertility treatments and contraceptives in federal law. All support restrictions on access to firearms, with Padora supporting the idea of raising the age for purchasing guns to 21, McCorkle calling for national safe-storage laws and Calvarese backing a measure to remove special liability protections from the gun industry.
The candidates also agreed on the need for comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
All three expressed deep concern about climate change and called for urgent action. Padora supports a ban on new oil and gas drilling, construction of renewable energy infrastructure and efforts to provide a just transition for energy workers. Calvarese wants to promote efforts to increase resilience to the devastating impacts of climate change and McCorkle seeks to ensure oil and gas workers are not left behind as the country pursues immediate steps to move to clean energy.
While the outcome of the primary election will be interesting for sure, the real show will take the stage in November.
The 4th Congressional District is but one vivid example of the extreme polarization in the country. We’re all steeped in it, struggling to keep friendships and family relationships from disintegrating in the toxic environment.
But while Colorado’s 4th is a hotbed, ultimately it may be a whole lot less predictable than most of us could have imagined a few months ago.
In fact, at this point, it’s a wild card in the volatile political slugfest that is the 2024 election. One recent poll has McCorkle beating Boebert 41% to 27%, with 33% undecided at this point. All those unaffiliated voters can make it a real contest.
And yet …
A lot can change in five months. Voters are only beginning to pay attention. Since the political environment is still in flux, polling is even more unreliable than usual.
In the Wild West of Colorado’s 4th, anything can happen.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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