August 29, 2022 02:58 PM UTC

Top GOP Senate Candidate Switched Parties 17 TIMES In 11 Years

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• by: Colorado Pols

With Republican hopes for recapturing the Colorado Senate in 2022 dwindling after the defection of Sen. Kevin Priola to the Democratic majority, the competitive races up this year are even more crucial if local Republicans hope to in any way benefit from what looks to be a petering “red wave” midterm. One of those is the race for Colorado Senate District 3, held by Sen. Nick Heinrichsen who was appointed to replace former Senate President Leroy Garcia after the Biden administration poached Garcia.

On paper, the Republican candidate in this district Stephen Varela should be a formidable contender for this race. But under the hood, as we discussed earlier this month, Varela’s qualifications come with serious baggage–like parents at the charter school where Varela is President of the board of directors loudly calling for his resignation. Politically, Varela has been a little tougher to pin down in this race, paying lip service to supposed bipartisan harmony in Pueblo while also appearing at events with the fringe of the Republican Party like Tina Peters and Ron Hanks.

As the Colorado Sun’s Unaffiliated newsletter explained earlier this month, Varela’s swinging-like-a-pendulum politics go much deeper this his current race for the state senate–and could put him in a very awkward position in the coming weeks:

Stephen Varela, the Republican running in a hotly contested state Senate district based in Pueblo, helped found a fiery political action committee that opposed U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert…

George Autobee said he co-founded Rural Colorado United in August 2020 with Varela, who was a Democrat until February 2021. The group went on to raise about $350,000 and spend that money on ads and research opposing Boebert. [Pols emphasis]

When asked about having raised more money attacking his polarizing but popular among Republicans congresswoman than he is likely to for his own entire state senate race, Varela understandably gets a little…well, cagey:

Varela, an Army veteran who serves on the board of a charter school, distanced himself from Rural Colorado United’s work in an interview with The Sun on Thursday, saying he was more a “behind the scenes guy” and that there were “other things I was doing at the time.”

Varela declined to share his views on Boebert, saying “I’m so busy focusing on my campaign that honestly I haven’t even paid attention to any of the congressional races.”

When asked whom he voted for in the 3rd Congressional District race in 2020, when Boebert beat Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, Varela said “I don’t even remember who was on the ticket.” [Pols emphasis]

Varela then admitted that since he was a Democrat at the time, he probably did vote for Diane Mitsch Bush. The whole response is just outlandishly dishonest, the kind of answer you give when you don’t have a good answer and both parties know it. Not every Republican voter in Pueblo County will be put off by Varela raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to attack freshman GOP mother of all trainwrecks Rep. Lauren Boebert, but some definitely will–and in a close race, that’s base support Varela can’t afford to lose.

And that segues into Varela’s other problem:

We looked at Varela’s voter registration history and it shows he has switched his party affiliation 17 times since 2011, when he first registered to vote. [Pols emphasis]

Obviously, it’s one thing to switch parties once, after years of deliberation of intraparty alienation, like Sen. Priola did last week. Stephen Varela switched parties seventeen times in eleven years, which is, we’re sorry, just weird. Varela tells the Sun despite this record of changing parties like some people change socks that “I am and will continue to be a Republican”–but with a track record like this, why would anyone believe him?

If Varela wanted to stand strong on attacking Boebert, he might actually win some credit for it. But by trying to weasel his way out of responsibility for hundreds of thousands spent attacking Boebert, Varela ends up making neither side happy. And that’s before they hear about Varela changing parties seventeen times in eleven years.

Don’t tell us “that’s Pueblo for you.” Stephen Varela’s politics are just plain silly.