Highlights
- The mood from the presidential race and Donald Trump's campaign is casting a shadow on the Colorado contest.
- The primary is considered a wild-card with most voters still undecided days before the Tuesday vote.
- The most recognizable candidate in the race is possibly Jack Graham, who is airing TV ads and sending mailers to boost his name recognition.
SALIDA — His back to the wall, made his final campaign pitch to a dozen or so people at a family-owned restaurant in this tourist town in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
He touted his native roots, his combat service in Iraq and his focus on national security. Then he asked for questions. The first: What do you think about Donald Trump? Days later, at a campaign event in Denver, a voter fired the same opening question at rival .
In this , five-way Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Colorado, the race is as much a litmus test on the presumptive GOP nominee and the direction of the national party as the candidates themselves.
Regardless of whether they support him, a significant number of Republican voters are looking for a blazing candidate akin to Trump, according to dozens of interviews across the state, a mood that is unsettling the status quo.
Instead of a rising star such as Keyser, who is former Gov. Bill Owens, the tone of the race is putting momentum behind hard-liner .
To Gina Seamans, a 48-year-old Republican from Arvada, Glenn is “unwavering.”
“Honestly, we need that more than anything,” she added, “to have someone who says what they mean and thatap it.”
At the same time, the low-interest affair may benefit a candidate such as Graham, who is emphasizing his outsider status as a successful businessman rather than his .
Rick Murray, a prominent Highlands Ranch Republican, voted for Graham. He liked Keyser at the start but switched allegiances after seeing how the candidate involving used to qualify for the ballot. “He shot himself in the foot,” Murray said. “I think he lost a lot of support.”
The race is considered a wild-card with no public polls and an all-mail ballot for only the second time in a statewide Republican primary. The private polling shows an elastic race with the plurality of voters — possibly more than a third — undecided. The candidates, including and , are jumbled in a knot with no clear favorite.
“Two or three different times, I knew who I was going to vote for,” said LaFawn Biddle, a 91-year-old retiree and prominent Denver philanthropist. Now, she added, “I don’t know.”
Established GOP contenders such as U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman , leaving a that initially attracted more than a dozen candidates. The race spent as didn’t qualify for the ballot initially.
The stakes are significant: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is often listed by national experts as the most vulnerable Democrat facing re-election this year, making it key to whether the party retains control in Washington.
But so far the interest in the race is minimal. The latest state figures show 15 percent of registered Republicans have returned mail ballots. It’s unclear how many voted in the U.S. Senate race.
At this point in the 2014 Republican gubernatorial contest, the party’s only other statewide mail-ballot primary, about 35,000 more voters had cast ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“It seems completely wide open at this point,” said E. Scott Adler, a political science professor at the University of Colorado. “If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t bet on this race.”
Glenn riding a wave
Glenn started the race with an advantage. He announced his candidacy in January 2015 and traveled the state months before his rivals joined him, winning support from constitutional conservatives and Tea Party supporters.
The 13-year local elected official and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel remains the clear favorite among the GOP faithful after he secured his slot on the ballot with at the state party convention.
This week, he received the support of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the highest-profile endorsement in the race to date.
“Glenn is the most qualified and most experienced,” said Brad Tutor, the Gunnison County GOP chairman and a supporter. “He’s a constitutional, Christian, conservative person.”
Glenn’s campaign sign is the only one at the main intersection leading into Salida, where Keyser met with more than a dozen voters at The Bounty restaurant on a recent campaign stop.
In response to the question about Trump, Keyser said that he will support the nominee and pushed back against concern that Trump will hurt voter turnout in November. Among the contenders, only Graham and Frazier have about Trump as the party’s nominee.
The presidential race — in addition to the crowded field — is making it difficult for any candidate to rise to the top, said Karin Adams, a longtime Republican activist organizing for Keyser in Chaffee County.
“Itap been such a distraction,” she said. “I have a lot of people calling me because they look at five names and say what are they supposed to do?”
Graham’s money advantage
The most recognizable candidate in the race is possibly Graham. The first-time candidate put $1.5 million from his own pocket into the race to pay for television ads and mailers and to emphasize his business background.
Less mentioned: Graham registered as a Republican before entering the race. He also supports abortion rights and gay marriage.
But Graham’s focus on the economy won the support of Mel Hilgenberg, chairman of a Weld County Republican club — despite the fact that abortion is a major issue for him.
“Part of the reason for backing Graham is that he’s been a very good businessman,” Hilgenberg said.
Blaha is the other businessman with no elected experience in the race.
Embracing a brash Trump-like tone, he landed on the scene and is differentiating himself with a call for a war on the Islamic state and that he will not seek re-election unless he reduces illegal immigration by 50 percent, cuts the deficit and overhauls the tax system.
Frazier is pitching himself as the “whole package” — someone who can unite the different voting blocs in the party. The former Aurora councilman runs strongest in the Denver area, thanks in part to recognition from his and tenure as a TV political analyst.
Chris Pilgrim, a business owner from Arvada, said he is undecided. But he knows what he’s looking for in a candidate.
“Because there are so many parallels between all of them,” he said, “I think itap going to come down to this: We have to have somebody who is going to go there not fold.”
