Renee Parsons

There are essential take-aways for Colorado’s America First (AF) faction after two significant Congressional District losses in its GOP primary:  the first Aha moment is that the RINO Uniparty faction rules the state’s GOP constituents along with Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the Rocky Mountain Values PAC, (RMV).  

As a politically lethal combination of Never Trumpers, these big time players easily influenced a significant portion of the GOP rank n file voter base as they take credit for the losses.  

Their Colorado supporters were responsible for initiating the Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit to remove Donald J. Trump from the state’s Presidential ballot which was unanimously denied by the Supreme Court. 

 The second Aha is that, despite the Third and Fifth CD’s both considered as Battleground elections, GOP activists appear to be lacking in a political savvy that should be ingrained in every thinking, voting American.  It might be assumed that a majority of Republican voters support the America First movement as well as reform of the House of Representatives to reject its RINO-Uniparty domination.  When it came to practicing what they preach; that is voting to create the reality of an AF House of Representatives, Colorado’s Republican voters blew it. 

From the outset of the race for the Third Congressional District, it was clear that six aspirants created a field of surplus candidates especially with four not-ready-for-prime-time (NRFPT) contestants with no practical political experience.  

 While across the political aisle, Mayor Ana Stout of Grand Junction withdrew from the Democratic primary to clear the field for Democrat Adam Frisch.  But then County and State Democrats win elections while Republicans misread the tea leaves and undermine their own efforts.

The Third Congressional District is the state’s geographically largest CD with twenty nine of the state’s sixty four counties containing half the state’s land mass.  The District includes Colorado’s western slope, a portion of the Eastern Plains, giant swaths of agricultural and public lands and the cities of Pueblo, Grand Junction, Aspen, Durango, Glenwood Springs and Ignacio.  

In other words, anyone who aspires to campaign and win in the Third District needs to be ‘on the road’ extensively which requires time, energy and deep pockets or have a state-wide constituency already in place.  It is elementary that any candidate limited to one’s own county or local geography cannot expect to win without a substantial statewide base.  Therefore, those four previously mentioned NRFPT waged a hopeless campaign as none ever showed any sign of winning as the final election results proved.   

To be clear, some of these candidates were well aware they had no chance of winning a District wide contest; albeit refused to withdraw up to the bitter end, thereby assuring a divisive GOP as well as a contentious primary victory. 

The candidate surplus became an obvious detriment when one of the six was revealed to be supported by the Democrats, the AFP and the RMV and a philosophic member of the RINO Uniparty wing of the GOP.  As the campaign progressed, the anti-America First crowd contributed deep pockets to Jeff Hurd while the same political forces waged a malicious and staged a deliberately confused campaign against Ron Hanks.   

From the beginning, Ron Hanks, a 32 year Air Force vet with hefty national security bona fides and former State House member who was present at J6 (but not indicted) was a clear favorite and endorsed by the State GOP.  Even the RMV Voter Guide, which was devoted solely to denouncing Hanks, admitted that “Jeff Hurd and Ron Hanks are two of the top candidates in the race.”  

The Dem-dark money RMV spent $500,000 to defeat election-denier Hanks claiming he would be the “easiest candidate” to beat in November – which defies logic.  When is campaign money ever spent to defeat the ‘easy’ candidate?

On one hand, Hanks was accused of “no wonder liberals love him” while on the other, he was blamed for being ‘too conservative’  for Colorado – neither of which was ever true.  The raw truth is that some of the aforementioned NRFPT candidates liberally used the confusion to rally their own GOP supporters.  Blinded by the paradox, second rate voters totally missed the distinction that Hanks was being touted by conflicting contradictions in order to confuse the electorate against the one candidate who could easily beat the Democrat Frisch and bring his AF principles to an ailing Congress.

Even the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund associated with Speaker Johnson weighed in with a complete distortion of Ron as  a “Bullseye for Liberals” which confirms which side the Speaker resides.

As if all the misperceptions were not enough, the RMV sent out seven glossy, colored, expensive large campaign mailers in the Third.   Three of which were solely devoted to labelling Hanks as a “conservative warrior” as if that is a negative and declaring “Trumpism is Wrong”. 

Most entertaining were Democrat Frisch’s tv ads appropriately nailing Hurd for his failures during the primary of not participating in any candidate forums and refusing to reveal his previous/current Presidential choices.

The organized effort to skew the primary results depended on a politically immature constituency, unable to read between the lines as the Uniparty strategy to discredit and confuse voters about Hanks in favor of Hurd was especially effective.  

Election night results for the Third gave Uniparty candidate Jeff Hurd a shaky 43% with 28,750 votes.  His closest rival was Ron Hanks with 28% and 18,541 votes.  From there, the NRFPT split the remaining 30% of the vote; thereby frittering what otherwise could have been a solid GOP opponent to the Dems in November while sending Hurd to DC with a less than impressive plurality. 

Over in the Fifth District, Maga endorsed candidate Dave Williams experienced a well-organized, well-funded $2.7 million Pac resistance in support of Jeff Crank who was also supported by Speaker Johnson. 

President Trump remained oddly on the sidelines by not endorsing Hanks, an Air Force  veteran of Afghanistan while Veterans for Trump pulled their endorsement of one of the NRFPT’s.  With the loss of Williams, the former President’s influence appeared to be less advantageous when the votes were counted as two new RINO Uniparty House Members will be taking their seats. 

Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.