December 29, 2014 01:04 PM UTC

Top 10 Stories of 2014: Cory Gardner Runs for U.S. Senate (#8)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Next month Republican Cory Gardner will be sworn-in as Colorado's newest U.S. Senator. This story is not about that.

In fact, let's forget about the outcome of the 2014 Election altogether (at least for the purposes of the words that follow). Regardless of what happened in November, one of the biggest political stories in Colorado in 2014 was Gardner's surprise decision to jump into a Senate race that Republicans had no hope of winning against incumbent Democrat Mark Udall. Gardner's candidacy for Senate changed the entire election cycle and re-aligned the Republican ticket up and down the ballot, for better or worse. This is not to downplay the significance of Gardner's victory in November; no matter how the results shook out, Gardner's decision to run for U.S. Senate was important and impactful enough on its own to warrant a place in our Top 10 Stories of 2014.

It was late February when Gardner announced his Senate run, and within a matter of weeks he had already cleared a crowded field of candidates on the Republican side. That the seas parted so easily for Gardner (with some holdout from Owen Hill) is testament to the fact that he was clearly the best candidate Republicans could find in 2014. But it wasn't just that Gardner was an appealing candidate on his own; like being the most attractive person in a small room, Gardner was an exciting choice for Republicans who were otherwise stuck with an historically-bad field of candidates. It's easy to forget today just how bad things looked for the GOP one year ago.

The three top GOP contenders for Senate (Ken Buck, Amy Stephens, and Owen Hill) finished the Q4 2013 fundraising period by raising about $200,000…combined. Buck, Stephens, and Hill ended up posting 3 of the 10 worst fundraising quarters in Colorado since 2000. To put these numbers in perspective, Republican Rep. Mike Coffman spent more money in Q4 than the three top Republican Senate candidates managed to bring in the door (here's the chart if you want the details). Dig a little deeper, however, and the numbers got much worse; including outstanding loans and debts, Stephens actually finished 2013 with a negative balance of $11,000 (Gardner even offered to help pay off Stephens' debts as part of the deal to get her to drop out).

Gardner wasn't just the best chance that Republicans had in 2014 — he was really the only option. Gardner's sketchy record on policy issues was irrelevant when it was clear that he was the only GOP candidate who could rub two nickels together. Republicans would have eventually raised money for whomever emerged from the June Primary, but Gardner was the only candidate who could raise enough money to support a real statewide field effort for the GOP — something which would benefit every other race down the ballot. Even if Gardner had failed to win the Senate race, his candidacy was critical for Republicans in general; it's probably fair to say that Republicans could not have taken control of the State Senate without Gardner's cherubic mug churning out both dollars and voters. Resources aside, Gardner's candidacy also gave Republicans a feeling of confidence that they hadn't felt since former Gov. Bill Owens was coasting to an easy re-election victory in 2002.

Gardner's candidacy also shifted the priorities of Colorado Republicans. Bob Beauprez would probably not have been the GOP nominee for Governor if not for his ability to partially self-fund a challenge to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper; Republicans certainly wanted to defeat the incumbent Governor, but it was more important for Beauprez's campaign to support — or at least, not harm — Gardner's bid for Senate. There are many reasons that Ken Buck lost his 2010 Senate race against Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet, and the absurd candidacy of Republican Dan Maes for Governor sits near the top of that list. With Gardner in the race for Senate, Republicans felt a new urgency to make sure that Tom Tancredo was not their nominee for Governor, lest his well-known and divisive positions poison the electorate. At times, Beauprez's campaign for Governor almost became an afterthought, with the outcome justifying the strategic approach; Colorado Republicans would take a Gardner win and a Beauprez loss 10 out of 10 times.

Finally, Gardner's Senate candidacy made room for other prominent Republicans in 2014. Gardner backed Buck to replace him in CD-4, and the GOP's erstwhile Senate "frontrunner" had little trouble winning a crowded Primary to win a seat that was virtually impossible for Democrats to challenge in a General Election. After the November election, Buck was voted by his peers as the "President" of the freshman class of Republican Members of Congress, which should only benefit other Colorado Republicans. Buck also went on to hire GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Brophy as his Chief of Staff, giving the former State Senator someplace to land within the Republican infrastructure.

Cory Gardner's ascension to the U.S. Senate is the biggest political story in Colorado in 2014 (spoiler alert). That he decided to run for Senate at all is a Top 10 story in itself.