Democrats Spending Heavily to Pick a Republican House Nominee in Colorado
The dark money Sixteen Thirty Fund that spent almost $200 million in 2022 on liberals is supporting failed Republican Ron Hanks now so it can destroy him in November
The Democratic Party’s constellation of dark money groups is spending over half a million dollars to gaslight Republican voters in a top House race.
In yet another example of Democrats spending money to pick Republican nominees, the Democrats’ Sixteen Thirty Fund is seeding a propped-up group to run ads to boost Ron Hanks, a failed GOP candidate, in Colorado’s 3rd District primary.
A sketchy group called the Rocky Mountain Values PAC is running an ad tying Hanks to President Donald Trump, using the exact same reverse psychology that Democrats use cycle after cycle to convince Republicans to nominate the Democrats’ preferred candidate. The state’s primary is Tuesday, giving Republicans precious little time to push back on Democrats trying to muddy their waters.
Importantly, Hanks isn’t currently leading in public polling. Jeff Hurd, a local lawyer, is regularly leading with a plurality of support. One recent poll found Hanks in a distant second, failing to even clear double digits.
Fortunately for Hanks, Democrats are spending to change his fortunes. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is helping to finance these ads, spent almost $200 million on “political causes including protecting abortion rights and keeping the Democratic Senate majority in 2022,” per NBC News. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that they want Ron Hanks to win the nomination so that he loses in November. It’s almost as if Democrats did this successfully in Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and beyond just last cycle.
Beyond the overwhelming evidence that Democrats want Hanks in 2024 to face their well-funded likely nominee, Adam Frisch, is the evidence that Democrats wanted Hanks in 2022. Last cycle, Democrats employed the same tactics to try and get Republicans to nominate him for Senate, only to find that Republican voters weren’t hoodwinked by their obvious tricks. Elsewhere in Colorado, Democrats tried meddling in Republican primaries for governor and Congress last cycle as well.
The dark money support from Democrats for Hanks pairs well with Frisch’s own ads which are clearly intended to boost Hanks at Hurd’s expense. In one ad, Frisch attacks Hurd for being too moderate, a clear signal to Republican primary voters that they should instead vote for Frisch’s actual preferred opponent, Hanks. Frisch is spending over $100,000 to air this ad.
This time, however, the GOP isn’t taking the Democrats’ meddling lying down. The National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) Delanie Bomar blasted the Democrats for their clear efforts to pick the Republicans’ nominee.
“Adam Frisch’s gutter politics play reveals one thing,” Bomar said. “He can’t win unless he plays dirty. Republicans must stand united to denounce Democrats’ pathetic primary meddling – because Republicans should pick our party’s nominee, not Democrats.”
But actions (and money) speak louder than words, and the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) is spending roughly half a million dollars on ads of its own, asking why “Democrat mega donors spending so much to prop up Ron Hanks' campaign,” and warning Republican voters that Hanks “even abandoned President Trump” in the past.
I’ve written time after time that if it walks like a Democratic dark money ad designed to gaslight Republicans into losing elections, and if it talks like a Democratic dark money ad designed to gaslight Republicans into losing elections, it’s probably a Democratic dark money ad designed to gaslight Republicans into losing elections.
In 2022, Colorado Republicans decisively rejected the Democrats’ attempts to pick their nominees. Let’s hope that on Tuesday, they do so again.