June 16, 2020 09:07 AM UTC

Gardner, Republicans Campaign in Democratic Primary

• 5 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The June 30 Election is two weeks away, and Republicans are spending a lot of time and effort…in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.

Both the Gardner campaign and the @NRSC have new anti-Hickenlooper ads out this morning. The NRSC ad debuted in Denver this morning.

The NRSC had planned to go on air after the June 30 primary but bumped up its ad buy and squeezed it into Hick’s bad month. #cosen #copolitics pic.twitter.com/4L3w77j3zG

— Justin Wingerter (@JustinWingerter) June 16, 2020

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is spending big money on this new television ad in a very obvious attempt to weaken former Gov. John Hickenlooper in his race for the Democratic Senate nomination against former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

At the same time, Republican incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner is up with an laughably-bad new ad of his own that is critical of Hickenlooper but ripe for mockery:

Fixed it for you, @CoryGardner. #copolitics #cosen https://t.co/nQPUzoWmKz pic.twitter.com/qs0xBU902l

— ProgressNow Colorado (@ProgressNowCO) June 16, 2020

Republicans are interfering in a Democratic Primary for very obvious reasons: They would much rather run a General Election race against Romanoff than the two-term former Governor. Last month, two separate polls showed Hickenlooper beating Gardner by 18 points in a potential fall matchup. Romanoff doesn’t have the resources to do much on television, so Gardner and the NRSC are doing it for him in hopes up driving up negative reactions to Hickenlooper.

Gardner’s campaign would probably have been better off just letting the NRSC ad run by itself and not getting involved with their idiotic “Frasier” impression, but you know what they say about desperate times…