June 12, 2018 02:53 PM UTC

"Media Is Afraid" GOP Will Retain Control of U.S. Senate, And They "Want Us to Fail," Says Gardner

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) said last week that he’s not planning to run again for his current U.S. Senate leadership position, in which he’s charged with electing Republicans to the U.S. Senate.

His reason for stepping away: “I am going to be focused on 2020,” he told The Hill, a Washington DC publication.

Translation: He’s going to work on his own re-election campaign in Colorado, where he’s even more unpopular than Trump–and that’s in a state that voted for Hillary Clinton by five points.

Gardner, who doesn’t return my calls, likely sees the obstacles to his own re-election in 2020 as similar to those facing Republicans this year.

A big problem is the media, according to Gardner. The media is making the November election look really lousy for Republicans.

Telling fellow conservatives at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver Friday that Republicans will be able to confirm scores of judges if they can retain control of the U.S. Senate in November, Gardner said the “media is afraid of this,” and they “want us to fail.”

Gardner (at 57 min 45 secs here): There is only one body that confirms judges and that is the United States Senate. We have the potential to confirm scores more of these constitutional judges, but we have to keep the senate.

The media knows this. The media is afraid of this. And that is why they want us to fail. They are already writing their stories. You can see it in the news. They don’t want us to think we are just going to lose the house and the senate, but sometimes I get the feeling they are cheering it on. This past election was a rebuke of their narrative that our movement is on the outs.

This is not the first time Gardner has claimed the media is aligned against Republicans. Back in 2012, Gardner blamed Mitt Romney’s loss in part on the media.

He once told a right-wing talk radio host that the media is biased against “people like us.”

In focusing on the media as a big Republican problem in November, Gardner is skirting discussion of the GOP legislative collapses on healthcare, immigration, and trade, or the mood swings of President Trump, or the tax bill’s failure to deliver promised wage increases for middle-class voters.