Opinion: In Colorado, the GOP’s election odds don’t look great in 2024

In 2024, Denver will solve homelessness and vagrancy, revitalize its downtown, and have a functioning, drama free public school board. The state will provide real property tax relief, widen I 70, and heal the rural urban divide by training wolves to love tofu. If only. What’s for certain, this time next year, the 2024 election will be over, and the state’s moribund Republican Party will be either stone dead or rising from the ashes.

Also, our governor will have tweeted a video of himself performing a Kwanzaa dance. The year’s election is off to a colorful start. On Friday, Congressman , leaving his seat in the 5th Congressional District open. Perhaps Rep. in her decision to leave Congressional District 3 or she could have moved to Colorado Springs instead of Castle Rock.

Blaming Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Barbra Streisand, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert decided to ditch her district and run for another several hundred miles from home. My abiding love for Reynolds grows deeper. Several candidates who actually live in the district, have experience passing legislation, and have never been thrown out of a theater are already running for that seat.

Presumably, an endorsement by US House Speaker Mike Johnson allows her to cut in line, at least in her own mind. On the bright side, the district switch enabled a credible candidate, Grand Junction lawyer Jeff Hurd, to take on Adam Frisch, the former Aspen City Councilmember who lost to Boebert by only 546 votes last election.

A family man, Hurd doesn’t appear to have any skeletons in the closet or . Frisch faces an uphill battle in the Republican leaning mountain district despite his fundraising prowess and Hollywood connections. With Boebert no longer an opponent, he doesn’t have a chance. But wait! Hoping to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, former state legislator and avid election conspiracy theorist Ron Hanks has jumped into the 3rd Congressional District race.

Last time he ran for office against U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea, Hanks released a low budget campaign video showing him shooting a photocopier with a high powered rifle. He should reach out to the Democrats who boosted his campaign last time around. A little Hollywood consulting could help with the production values on his next video.

Otherwise, he might shoot a fax machine. On the bright side, a couple of credible candidates have thrown their hats in the ring to challenge first term Democrat Yadira Caraveo in the 8th Congressional District. State Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton and Weld County Commissioner Scott James have entered the race.

Caraveo narrowly beat out state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer after a Libertarian spoiler candidate shaved off 9,280 votes. Assuming potential spoilers stay out and GOP candidates refrain from kookery, the GOP can pick up a congressional seat. Since other districts remain uncompetitive, the GOP must focus on the opportunities they have.

Last election, some candidates in the few competitive campaigns tried to walk the funambulist’s high wire, neither embracing nor refuting the election conspiracy theories that have duped the far right. In doing so, they lost credibility among moderates and right leaning voters who knew better. GOP candidates must distance themselves from the fantasy wing of the party and its deceiver.

If they do, they have a chance. President Joe Biden is the weakest second term candidate since Jimmy Carter. Any non insurrectionist GOP opponent will beat him. The GOP is also looking to pick up U.S. Senate seats in states like Montana and West Virginia. It could be a good year nationwide. The public remains frustrated with inflation, ineffective border policies, and far left insanity.

Instead of featuring Trump’s glowering mugshot on its webpage, the Colorado GOP should feature the far left student’s anti Semitic tirades on campuses or the outburst from one member of Colorado’s state House of Representatives during the special session, squalid tent camps, migrant buses, the conditions for Afghan women abandoned by the U.S., and the price of milk.

The vision of free enterprise, personal responsibility, strong foreign policy, regulated immigration, low taxation, limited government, and respect for others is not exclusively or always consistently a Republican one, but it offers a contrast to that of the other party, especially its radical fringe.

If the Colorado GOP embraces policy and principle over a certain personality, it will make a comeback in this state. Otherwise, expect a whimsical funeral dirge to ring out from Polis’ Twitter account this time next year..