July 01, 2022 10:34 AM UTC

Everybody Reads Colorado Pols; We Appreciate It

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Pols and “The Big Line” apparently came up this week during a discussion about the Primary Election on “The Conservative Daily” podcast featuring right-wing activists Joe Oltmann, Ashe Epp, and Jeff O’Donnell. We were also cited by the right-wing website “Gateway Pundit” in a similar manner.

Before we get to “The Conservative Daily,” here’s the citation from “Gateway Pundit”:

But this story isn’t so much about Pam Anderson, who skipped the typical GOP Convention nomination by instead gathering signatures to appear on the ballot. It’s not even so much about Tina Peters, whom ColoradoPols.com showed as “…sadly, [the] favorite in a Republican Primary in 2022” and also showed Tina Peters chances to win not just the primary, but the overall general election at 40% to Pam Anderson’s 20% and Mike O’Donnell’s 5%. [Pols emphasis]

Pointing to Colorado Pols as a proof point for election fraud in Colorado’s Primary Election seems to be a popular idea this week. On Wednesday’s episode (June 29) of “The Conservative Daily,” the hosts focused on the idea that fraud must have been why Republican candidates such as Ron Hanks (U.S. Senate), Greg Lopez (Governor), and Tina Peters (Secretary of State) failed to win their respective races. At about the 34:44 mark of the episode, the hosts bring up Colorado Pols and “The Big Line.” You can view this clip below or read the transcript that follows:

EPP: And that’s not just us, by the way. The leftists on Colorado Pols put out predictions on all of these campaigns, and the results are completely inverted to everyone’s predictions. [Pols emphasis] I was talking to some leftists yesterday who were predicting that the topline candidates were going to win across the board and then get crushed in November, right – that’s what they thought. Nobody expected this, and it’s a complete inversion of what we would expect to see based on early polling, based on candidate enthusiasm, based on turnout for events – all of the things that would indicate, you know, broad support for candidates, uh, it’s inverted.

[Image of The Big Line put up on screen]

OLTMANN:This was ColoradoPols.com that had Jena Griswold winning by 70% and the percentages and likelihood based on influence – winning the primaries – excuse me, winning the elections…40 percent, 20 percent, and 15 percent. Showing O’Donnell going up, Pam Anderson going down, and Tina [Peters] staying steady. [Pols emphasis]

This shows – and by the way, the polls, the inner polls [sic] by the GOP — having conversations with them, I was asked last night, ‘Joe, how did you know that we actually ran polls?’ And I go, ‘You have insiders that…’ And she goes, ‘Of course you do.’ [laughter] And I go, ‘People are sick of it. They’re sick of a corrupt GOP.’ 

EPP: And the GOP keeps doubling down.

OLTMANN: And the GOP keeps doubling down. 

Look, we’re flattered to be included in any discussion about Colorado politics, but WE don’t believe that Tuesday’s Primary Election was fraudulent. It is true that our last pre-Primary version of “The Big Line” projected slight leads for both Ron Hanks and Greg Lopez, and a larger projected lead for Tina Peters. But we were just wrong.

We assumed that the campaigns for Hanks and Lopez were doing more to get out the word about their candidates, but they were both significantly outspent and outmaneuvered by opponents Joe O’Dea and Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, respectively. We also overestimated the number of “Big Lie” voters who participated in the Primary; the right-wing GOP voter base that carried Hanks, Lopez, and Peters to victory at April’s State Republican Party Assembly didn’t have the numbers to push their preferred candidates through in the Primary Election.

In the race for Secretary of State, Mike O’Donnell earned a surprising number of votes as an apparent alternative to both Peters and eventual winner Pam Anderson. Though as we wrote on Wednesday, the “voter fraud” candidates (Peters and O’Donnell) outpolled Anderson overall.

To repeat, we do NOT think that there was voter fraud in Colorado’s Primary Election, but we appreciate that both “Gateway Pundit” and “The Conservative Daily” are following Colorado Pols.

There’s also one more point we want to clear up from “The Conservative Daily” podcast:

EPP: And this source that’s up on the screen [Colorado Pols] obviously is not a biased source for us. The topline candidates are called “The Big Line” here in this, right? [laughs] 

OLTMANN: Yeah.

EPP: And even their predictions are inverted. Nobody saw this. Nobody predicted this. This was a complete diversion from what we would expect to see in this election…

OLTMANN: And again, they use the words “The Big Lie.” They use all of these things. 

The hosts seem to be saying here that “The Big Line” is a play on the phrase “The Big Lie,” which is not at all true. As longtime readers of Colorado Pols know, we have ALWAYS featured “The Big Line” — since the site was launched in 2004 and long before “The Big Lie” was even a figment of Donald Trump’s imagination. For that matter, we’re just as certain that the “Big Lie” phrase has nothing whatsoever to do with “The Big Line.”

Anyway, thanks to everyone for continuing to support Colorado’s longest-running and most widely-read political website.