April 28, 2012 07:17 PM UTC

Lundberg vs. Weissmann Primary Set To Heat Up

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Independent’s Scot Kersgaard reports:

On the one hand, you have Jared Polis, an openly gay, socially progressive multimillionaire as the incumbent Democrat in Colorado’s Second Congressional District.

On the other hand, you have two very different Republicans running for the chance to run against Polis. You have current Colorado State Senator Kevin Lundberg, an arch social conservative who has been among the legislature’s leaders in fighting against civil unions legislation. (See video of him below quoting the Bible in this week’s civil unions debate.)

Eric Weissmann, the other Republican vying for the chance to face off against Polis, has a history of failing to pay his taxes on time…

The Republican primary election to challenge incumbent Rep. Jared Polis in CD-2 is a bit of a microcosm of Republican strengths and weaknesses across the state. This is a district that has become (on paper) significantly more competitive, although some numbers we’ve seen make it appear less so. In any event, you’ve got two interesting competitors for the seat in the form of state Sen. Kevin Lundberg and heretofore-unknown businessman Eric Weissmann.

Weissmann, as the Independent’s Kersgaard details in his story, is damaged goods out of the gate for a few reasons. Although Weissmann is now personally wealthy, he apparently had protracted issues with paying taxes, with four liens filed over a number of years ending in 1997. That’s great ad fodder, but we think Weissmann’s decision to bypass the assembly, followed by the petition troubles Weissmann had, now resolved, may hurt him even more.

State Sen. Kevin Lundberg represents everything the “Tea Party” wants in a candidate for Congress. We frequently note Lundberg’s legislative antics and place on the hard right end of the Colorado Senate Republican caucus, but the fact is, he enjoys considerably better name recognition than Eric Weissmann after his long years in legislative politics. Sen. Lundberg dominated the CD-2 GOP assembly, albeit against a non-opponent, and he has done least as much to organize for this primary as Weissmann did collecting signatures.

The fact is, there’s really not much time now with the primary approaching June 26th. With a solid field effort and judicious use of CD-2’s media markets, we do think Lundberg has the upper hand against Weissmann for moving on to face Rep. Polis. We don’t think either of these contenders have a realistic hope of taking Polis out, but all Lundberg needs now is to have a better fourth Tuesday in June. These aren’t general election dynamics, and Lundberg knows it.