A lot was riding on that moment on an early April morning. Kristina Turczyn and her wife, Mindy Taylor, had decided that this would be their last round of — it was too taxing physically, emotionally and financially. And based on previous rounds, they knew this was likely the one viable embryo they had left.

After five long minutes, Turczyn said, two lines appeared on the pregnancy test. The spouses looked at each other, stunned.

Then, “I literally felt the earth shift beneath my feet,” said Turczyn, now 38. “Just everything changed in that moment. You spend all this time going through this process … and there are no guarantees. And then you see two little lines that you’ve worked so hard for, and it just feels amazing. It feels amazing and magical and fragile.”

The use of , was thrust to the forefront of national attention by that declared that frozen embryos from fertility treatments had the same rights as children. The ruling reignited political debates across the country about whether life begins at an egg’s fertilization, an idea that had been until the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Providers, patients and lawmakers worried about the decision’s future implications, while members of both major political parties have scrambled since then to try to protect the fertility treatments.

Two of Colorado’s Democratic federal lawmakers, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a longtime pediatrician, announced their backing of .

At the state level, Colorado policymakers have taken steps in recent years to increase access to IVF as they’ve also shored up abortion rights.

A for large-group health plans. And in 2022, the Democratic-majority legislature voted to guarantee the right to abortions and all types of reproductive care in state law. Lawmakers again this year defeated pressed by conservatives that would have recognized a fetus as a person in state law.

Coloradans who spoke to The Denver Post said they felt mostly protected in the state, though they’re concerned about potential impacts from the Alabama ruling on families seeking reproductive assistance in the future, including for LGBTQ or other marginalized people.

For Turczyn and her wife, as a queer couple, IVF was essential to getting pregnant. In December, Turczyn gave birth to baby Leo.

People from a variety of circumstances and backgrounds use IVF to get something they’ve dreamed about their entire lives, Turczyn said, so “why wouldn’t we use that?”

Abortion rights advocates hope to cement the state’s existing protections and expand access to abortion in the Colorado Constitution through a ballot measure this fall. Lawmakers also aim to tighten insurance coverage gaps for IVF.

Fertility treatments are common

Republican lawmakers have tried to distance themselves from the Alabama ruling, that life begins at conception while also supporting the use of IVF, including for their own families.

Alabama’s state legislature in late February protecting providers and patients from criminal and civil liabilities, though some argue it . The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a stating that no GOP Senate candidates supported restricting access to fertility treatments and encouraging candidates to reject such attempts, .

Abortion activists and legal experts, however, that GOP efforts to restrict abortion — including granting legal rights to embryos and fetuses — could put reproductive care and fertility treatments like IVF in jeopardy.

“The protection of abortion, which is on one end of the spectrum of reproductive health care, actually goes a long way to protect IVF by denying personhood and other constructs,” said Karen Middleton, the president of Cobalt, a Colorado reproductive rights group.

In the U.S., about reported using some kind of fertility service between 2017 and 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, while said they or someone they knew personally had used fertility treatments.

The Alabama that couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in a fertility clinic accident had a claim to bring suit under that state’s wrongful death law.  Following the ruling, some clinics immediately suspended IVF services, if they froze, donated or discarded unused embryos — a typical part of the process.

In IVF, mature eggs are taken from the ovaries and then fertilized by sperm in a lab. A fertilized egg, or embryo, is then placed in a uterus. Other eggs can be frozen for future transfers.

Patients can use their own eggs and sperm, or they can use embryos from a donor. The process involves months of testing and taking hormones, injections and other medications for each round, along with medical procedures for egg retrievals and transfers.

When Stephenie Bishop of Littleton first heard about the Alabama ruling, she said she was mad. She thought about the families who were already in the middle of an IVF cycle when the ruling came down and clinics temporarily shut down, interrupting an already intense and exhausting process.

No one should have a say in something they don’t understand, she said. And that’s coming from someone who once was against the use of IVF, she said, because of how unnatural it seemed — until she learned more about it and, later, went through it herself.

“Traumatic and stressful and painful”

It was a similar frustration with decision-makers that led then-state Rep. Kerry Tipper, a Lakewood Democrat, to proposing to mandate insurance coverage of IVF for large-group policies. It passed and the coverage requirement took effect in 2023.

Tipper was undergoing IVF treatment herself at the time. Although , she said, she found that policy and coverage decisions about IVF were often based on misinformation or political control.

Passing the law felt like it legitimized the treatment as health care, Tipper said, while increasing Colorado residents’ access to it. She is now Denver’s city attorney.

“I just realized that it was an equitable issue that people aren’t necessarily comfortable talking about,” she said. “It can be really traumatic and stressful and painful.”

In the 2023 , a majority of respondents — 61% — said insurance should cover fertility treatments.

Bishop and her husband had been trying for years but weren’t able to have a baby due to medical reasons, so they started fertility treatments in 2019, first through , and then IVF. They tried different methods and switched clinics multiple times during their journey.

Their insurance didn’t offer IVF coverage for their first baby, but after the state law went into effect, their plan covered up to $15,000 for the second. Although Bishop’s insurance paid for some infertility treatment before the law’s passage, she repeatedly had to argue against denials and appeal rejections. She also paid much more out of pocket.

“It was less stressful, I feel like,” Bishop said of the second financial process, “because you don’t want to fight with the insurance company. You don’t want to be told that they’re not going to help you.”

Despite the physical, mental and emotional difficulties of the process — which people can truly understand only if they’re going through it — it was all worth it, Bishop said.

Her first son, Rigley, is now 2. In January, she gave birth to August, also conceived through IVF.

The insurance coverage change also made a difference for Nicole Dallek’s family. She and her husband paused their journey for a few months after they found out insurance would cover some of the costs when the law took effect.

Dallek, 36, said that without that new coverage, the Lakewood couple would have been on the hook for more than $26,000 for one cycle, and they might have had to take out a loan, as other families have done to pay for IVF.

The wait paid off. Dallek is now pregnant and due in July.

As a school district employee, Dallek was able to get the coverage through her employer. But Coloradans who have individual or small-group health plans aren’t guaranteed coverage, since those plans are exempt from the requirement.

State Rep. Meg Froelich, a Greenwood Village Democrat, has that would require the state to study the issue and come up with a cost analysis in hopes of adding new requirements to the law to expand access.

There are other hurdles, too, including some found by the Rev. Tawana Davis. She is the executive director of Soul 2 Soul Sisters, a racial and reproductive justice nonprofit that advocates for Black women.

Since the mandate became law, Davis has worked to make sure the Denver-based nonprofit����ap employees receive insurance coverage for fertility treatments and to help secure access for community members.

The group faced an obstacle with its employer-offered insurance company. It would cover a small portion of IVF costs only for patients who received an endometriosis diagnosis, even though infertility can occur for multiple reasons. As Soul 2 Soul Sisters searched for another insurer, it found either that companies wouldn’t cover IVF at all, or that they covered abortions but not IVF, or vice versa.

Colorado leads in a lot of areas for reproductive access, Davis said, especially when it comes to abortion. But “we have a lot of work to do,” she added, which is why Soul 2 Soul Sisters is working to support Black maternal health legislation that would in health access and outcomes.

“That’s a huge part of this IVF discussion and what lawmakers are saying about IVF,” she said. “We are already challenged by being birthing people and not having access to adequate health care so that we can birth children in a healthy way.”

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“He’s doing a horrible job,” the unaffiliated voter in Adams County’s Sherrelwood neighborhood, just south of West 84th Avenue, said of President Joe Biden.

Aragon was on a list of homes being targeted Tuesday evening by a team of GOP volunteers, wearing matching red T-shirts, who believe that face-to-face engagement with a segment of the population historically aligned with Democrats is a crucial campaign strategy.

“You’re seeing a lot of heavily dissatisfied Hispanic voters,” said Helder Toste, field and coalition director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as he rounded up a small group of volunteers behind a Dutch Bros coffee shop near Interstate 25. “They’re worried about crime and kitchen table issues.”

The conversations in Adams County on Tuesday centered on a concern that is universal these days: inflation, especially the price at the pump. Biden, said Damon Rodriguez, who has lived on Louise Drive for the last 2 1/2 years, “could be doing better.”

Maria Guzman-Weese, a volunteer door-knocker for Colorado Republicans, said Latinos are as impacted as anyone in the current economy — and that opens a real opportunity to get them into the GOP fold.

“We have the same concerns — it’s pocketbook issues like the economy and our children’s education,” Guzman-Weese said.

Tuesday’s canvassing represents what GOP leaders say is a new focus on Hispanic Colorado voters.

“We’ve gotten a lot better at saying, ‘We need to elevate minority voices,'” said Toste, who broke out into fluent Spanish at several homes where there were no English speakers, handing out a flyer and urging residents to vote.

Operación Vamos

The National Republican Senatorial Committee picked Colorado as one of a handful of states for what it dubbed Operación Vamos — an effort to make deeper inroads with Hispanic residents styled after . The others are Nevada, Washington, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Party officials said it is spending seven-figures on the effort, though they didn’t break it down by state.

“Reaching out to those Hispanic voters early in the cycle, not just when we’re asking for their vote, but when we can actually have real conversations about issues and what matters to them has really been effective across the nation,” Colorado GOP Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown said.

The party plans that outreach as a two-pronged effort: Ongoing door-knocking campaigns, like this week’s, and opening community centers in Hispanic neighborhoods after the dust settles from the June 28 primary election, she said.

They aim to meet those voters in their communities, versus expecting them to come to the party, and hear the issues dearest to them — with a dose of highlighting what Burton Brown describes as “radical” policies pushed by Democrats, from Biden to Sen. Michael Bennet. While Operación Vamos is nominally about the U.S. Senate, officials hope the effort will bear fruit down the ballot.

Burton Brown declined to say how many voters they hope to sway to change the outcome of elections, but noted that nearly 40% of the 8th Congressional District is Latino, the most of any congressional district in the state. Burton Brown also pointed to Lakewood. In the 7th Congressional District’s largest city, 22.7% of residents identify as Latino, up from 14.5% 20 years ago, according to U.S. Census data.

In what could be a tight election year, particularly with new congressional districts, swinging just a few percentage points worth of voters could tilt the state’s representation in the state Capitol and Washington, D.C. And given the economic climate, and the country’s history of backlash against the president����ap party in midterm elections, Republicans are hoping to open as many doors to their party — literally and metaphorically — as they can.

Democrats have a shrinking edge

Latino Coloradans have generally leaned Democratic in recent elections. In 2016, they voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by nearly 2-to-1 margins, helping her to secure the state in her failed bid for the White House.

In the 2020 presidential election, Latino voters still swung for Democrat Joe Biden but by slightly narrower margins: About 58% to 38%, according to . In the state legislature, almost all Hispanic and Latino members are Democrats.

“I am proud of the work our Latino initiative does in reaching out to Hispanic and Latino voters statewide,” Patricia Barela Rivera, the Colorado Democratic Party executive committee’s vice chair for communications, said in a statement. “We have a very focused strategy of going out and talking to the Latino community in all 64 counties, especially in areas with a high Latino population. We’re extremely excited that the new Congressional District 8 will represent the most Latinos of any other district. Voters know that Democrats are the party of inclusivity and the working class, and Dems will continue to make our case to residents of CD8 and across the state.”

In Greeley, long part of a very Republican congressional district but now in the dead-even 8th Congressional District, Sonny Subia isn’t so sure. Subia is the state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC.

The outreach described by the Republican Party, in his experience, is the best way to reach Latino voters. A tough pill for the avowed Democrat, who fears his own party is missing the boat this election cycle.

“It����ap scary,” Subia said. “I’m waiting for Democrats to get around and out front of the issues. I’m worried by the time they do, it will be too late.”

While Subia is open about his personal political preference, as LULAC director he simply wants Latino Coloradans engaged in the process and to vote. And as a nonprofit, LULAC doesn’t advocate for specific candidates, just for people to participate. He’s adopted a motto to underscore it: Educate to motivate to participate.

New district, new opportunities

This election cycle poses a particular opportunity for Latino Coloradans to make their voices heard, Subia said. But up in Greeley, where he regularly sees trucks fly “Let����ap Go Brandon” flags and stickers of Joe Biden exclaiming “I did that” adorn gas pumps, he worries years of Republican-dominated politics lulled some Latinos into thinking their vote didn’t matter.

But the new district is the most evenly split in the state, . Communicating that the new district reflects a new opportunity for representation falls under the educate part of his motto, he said.

“The Latino community is apathetic because they’ve been in (the 4th Congressional District) for so long,” Subia said. “They don’t realize they’re in CD8 and really have a chance to flex that Latino muscle.”

Neither party can take his community’s participation or vote for granted, he said.

Safety and the availability of guns — particularly after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 90% of the district is Latino, and the racist massacre at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store — is a concern for many of his peers, he said. Paying close to $5 per gallon for gas is also a signal that something’s not right, he said.

He’s not sure how many in his community trust the Republican Party. He cites campaign messages conflating Latinos at large with MS-13, former Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s fervent anti-immigration stances, and accusations that immigrants voted illegally to tilt the election against Trump as examples — but it also wouldn’t take a sea change among Latinos to tilt the electoral math in the GOP’s favor.

It’s also a danger to treat the broad umbrella of Latinos as all having the same background and undergirding beliefs. Cuban Americans in Florida and Latinos from the Southwest will have different lived and cultural experiences and beliefs, he said.

“Get Latinos to the polls”

Metropolitan State University of Denver political science professor estimates that just a 10% swing among Latinos would lead to a win for Republicans. He called Operación Vamos “a proactive reaction to some long-standing critiques of the Republican Party over a lack of Latino outreach and messaging.”

Determining if the program is successful, or successfully run, won’t be as simple as exit polls, he said. He also noted that political preference polls can vary widely among Latinos. However, the outreach described by the GOP could still be a road map for any political campaign.

“It����ap what campaigns need to do to gain Latino support,” Preuhs, who has specifically studied Latino political engagement, said. “That is the grassroots organizing, door-to-door knocking, Spanish language, community-sensitive messaging. Regardless if it’s Democrats or Republicans, that’s what seems to get Latinos to the polls.”

This is also a potentially key moment to reach that population, Preuhs said. Inflation and gas prices are emptying wallets, and it doesn’t feel like Democrats in power have made much headway on immigration policy, he said. of Latino Coloradans, immigration, jobs and the economy were the top issues, with discrimination and racial justice following soon after.

“The bottom line in this election for Latinos, and everybody else, is going to be their bottom line,” Preuhs said.

Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has launched an aggressive schedule, visiting states that will play a pivotal role in the 2024 primaries, and he has signed a contract with Fox News Channel. Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, has started a political advocacy group, finalized a book deal and later this month will give his first speech since leaving office in South Carolina. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been courting donors, including in Trump’s backyard, with a prominent speaking slot before the former president at a GOP fundraising retreat dinner this month at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort where Trump now lives.

Trump ended his presidency with such a firm grip on Republican voters that party leaders fretted he would freeze the field of potential 2024 candidates, delaying preparations as he teased another run. Instead, many Republicans with national ambitions are openly laying the groundwork for campaigns as Trump continues to mull his own plans.

They’re raising money, making hires and working to bolster their name recognition. The moves reflect both the fervor in the party to reclaim the White House and the reality that mounting a modern presidential campaign is a yearslong endeavor.

“You build the ark before it rains,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s presidential 2016 campaign, among others. “They’re going to do the things they need to do if he decides not to run.”

Trump, at least for now, is giving them plenty of leeway, convinced they pose little threat to his own ambitions.

“It����ap a free country. Folks can do what they want,” Trump adviser Jason Miller said in response to the moves. “But,” he added, “if President Trump does decide to run in 2024, the nomination will be his if you’re paying any attention to public polling of Republican voters.”

Polling does indeed show that Trump remains a commanding figure among GOP voters, despite his loss in November to Democrat Joe Biden. Republican leaders, including those who may hope to someday succeed him, have been careful to tend to his ego and make clear they have no plans to challenge his standing.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, last weekend awarded Trump a new “Champion for Freedom Award,” which the group publicized — complete with a photo of a smiling, golf-attired Trump holding a small, gleaming cup — even after the former president went after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in a profanity-laden speech.

A day later, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, considered a top-tier 2024 candidate, told The Associated Press that she will sit out the race if Trump runs again.

“I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it,” she said in Orangeburg, South Carolina. “That����ap something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made.”

The deference is, in part, an acknowledgement of Trump’s continued power. Even out of office and without his Twitter megaphone, Trump remains deeply popular with the GOP base and is bolstered by an $85 million war chest that can be shared with endorsed candidates, spent on advertising and used to fund travel and pay for polling and consultants.

Trump is making plans to soon increase his visibility, with aides discussing options to hold rallies as soon as late spring or summer. “There’s a pretty strong demand out there to get President Trump on the road,” Miller said.

Many Republicans acknowledge Trump would leap to the front of the pack if he chooses to mount a bid to become the only president other than Grover Cleveland to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Still, there is deep skepticism in many corners of the party that Trump will run again.

While people close to him insist he is serious, many see Trump’s continued flirtations as a means to maintain relevance as he has settled into a comfortable post-White House life. At Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, he’s courted by candidates and met by rounds of applause and standing ovations whenever he enters the dining room.

In the meantime, other could-be-candidates are making moves, even as many of their aides insist their focus is squarely on next year’s congressional elections and helping Republicans win back control of the House and Senate.

Jeff Kaufmann, the chair of the Iowa Republican party, said the activity in his state has begun even earlier this year than in the past two election cycles, with every candidate on his potential 2024 list having already visited or thinking of visiting the first state on the GOP nominating calendar.

“I know of no one — honestly no one — that is hesitating to come out,” he said. “Now some are a little more subtle than others, but that may not necessarily be tied to Donald Trump. That may be just tied into their campaign style and not wanting to get too far ahead of their skis until they see if they have any traction whatsoever.”

Pompeo, arguably the most aggressive to date, is among those who have already spent time in Iowa, as well as New Hampshire, and this week past he addressed Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s World Values Network in New York, where he was introduced by video by Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson. And on Saturday, he headlined the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner at Mar-a-Lago along with Scott and DeSantis.

DeSantis, who is up for reelection next year, recently hired a top Republican strategist who served as executive director of the Republican Governors Association. DeSantis also has been using the race to build a deep fundraising network that could support him if he chooses to run nationally.

The party, which for a time appeared to be paralyzed by division, has grown more united in its opposition to Biden, even as Trump continues to spar with McConnell and works to defeat incumbents who voted for his impeachment. Republicans in Congress have found common cause railing against Biden’s border policies, voting against his COVID-19 relief bill and pushing for new restrictions on voting, while railing against corporate interference in the voting rights debate.

“I think you would find broad agreement in our party that we need to be having the debate about policy,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, who continues to face enormous backlash after voting for Trump’s impeachment. “We need to be talking about policy,” she said while speaking to Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service last week.

Regardless of Trump’s ultimate decision, his critics and acolytes alike say they see the future of the party as dependent on maintaining their appeal to Trump voters, while at the same time winning back the suburban voters who abandoned them last fall.

“I think everyone’s trying to find that magic combination of ‘Trump-plus,’ of continuing to appeal to the new voters that President Trump brought to the Republican coalition while also bringing back some of the college-educated suburban folks that were repelled by his antics,” said Steel.

“There is no reason for either side to put another dime into this state. It����ap over,” said David Flaherty, a Republican pollster in Colorado who predicts “historic” losses for his party Nov. 3.

“It is undeniable. The train wreck and implosion of the president will bring a historic number of other Republican candidates down, and if you don’t believe that then you have your head in the sand,” he added.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Gardner led two years ago, has spent $145,000 in Colorado in the first half of October, according to a Denver Post review of campaign finance filings through Wednesday. That is far less than in the other five states the NRSC has focused on: Iowa ($3.2 million), Michigan ($3.2 million), Montana ($2.2 million), Maine ($2.2 million) and Arizona ($1.7 million).

The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC with ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has spent less in Colorado this month than in the 10 other states it has focused on, according to the review of campaign finance filings. When SLF it was spending $22.5 million to boost eight Republican Senate candidates, it set aside just $1 million of that for Colorado.

“Where the NRSC spends its money signals to everybody else what����ap in play, what isn’t in play, and where they think they can most effectively allocate their resources,” said Kyle Saunders, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, “and right now that just isn’t Colorado.”

The reasons for this are twofold, election observers say. First, Gardner has never led in a public poll and showed Democratic challenger John Hickenlooper leading by an average of 10 percentage points.

Second, the national map of Senate seats in play has expanded greatly, with Republicans gaining ground in Michigan and Democrats doing so in several Republican states, including Kansas, which hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. SLF announced Tuesday it is spending $3.3 million in Alaska — more than it has spent in Colorado all month — to protect a once-safe Republican incumbent there.

“It����ap unbelievable,” said Flaherty, the pollster. “Republicans are trying to defend South Carolina, Georgia, arguably Texas, Kansas, and that is 100% due to the president����ap failures as a candidate, on addressing COVID, and on a number of issues. That����ap why the Republicans really have their backs up against the wall.”

There was a time when national Republican groups spent a lot in Colorado just before an election. That was in June, before the Democratic primary Hickenlooper won. The NRSC spent several million dollars that month bashing Hickenlooper before he easily beat Andrew Romanoff. The next month, it began an $8.7 million spending spree here, making Colorado its second-highest priority.

But that has changed with the seasons. In September, the NRSC spent about $1 million in Colorado, considerably less than in the other states it has prioritized. In Arizona, where a Republican incumbent is trailing by similar margins as Gardner, it spent $3.3 million that month. In Maine, where Republicans have a better chance of re-electing an incumbent than in Colorado, it spent $4.5 million in September.

“The NRSC is proud of its significant investment in this race and our efforts to help Senator Gardner draw an important contrast with his scandal-plagued opponent,” said an NRSC spokeswoman, Joanna Rodriguez, when asked whether the Republican group has given up on Colorado.

Jack Pandol, a spokesman for SLF, said in a statement that his political action committee is holding Hickenlooper accountable through “aggressive advertising efforts” and called this article “false and ridiculous.”

Republican groups rightly point out that they have already injected a lot of money into Colorado this year — about $15 million total from the NRSC and SLF alone — and are scheduled to spend more in the weeks to come, even if it is far less than what they are spending elsewhere in the country.

“My perception is that Cory and his allies have together bought a huge amount of television time. At some point, does another $100,000 make any difference? I’m not sure it does,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair who has managed successful U.S. Senate campaigns.

“Cory’s problem is not that he does not have enough money in his account or that there’s not enough spending on that side. Cory’s biggest problem right now is the national political environment, and that has been driven by President Trump’s numbers against Joe Biden,” Wadhams said. “I’m not sure any money can offset that right now.”

“I woke up this morning to hear about a horrifying political ad using images from the explosion and fire that destroyed my life and killed my husband Mark and my brother Joey,” Martinez said through a spokesperson Thursday.

The ad, from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, uses video from the explosion to criticize John Hickenlooper, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. When Hickenlooper was governor, his office from Anadarko Petroleum, which owned the gas line that exploded. One donation came weeks after the explosion.

“No one went to jail, no fines under Hickenlooper,” a narrator says in . “John Hickenlooper took the money and let them get away with it.”

The ad began airing online, on Denver television stations, and on cable Thursday morning. The NRSC has spent millions of dollars, and plans to spend millions more, criticizing Hickenlooper before he faces Sen. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, on Nov. 3.

Martinez said Thursday that she and her family have worked extremely hard to prevent tragedies like the one that killed her brother and husband. She stood next to Gov. Jared Polis last year when he signed an oil and gas regulations overhaul.

“Not a single day goes by that we are not heartbroken and struck with unimaginable grief,” Martinez said in the emailed statement. “This ad uses my story in a negative light and disgraces the memory of Mark and Joey. Please remove this ad from public view immediately.”

Joanna Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the NRSC, responded to the request: “The kind of grief Ms. Martinez and her family have survived is unimaginable, and their public fight to keep other Colorado families safe is incredibly important.

“John Hickenlooper said he was going to do the right thing to protect Colorado families right after the explosion, but then a private donation to his office from the gas company responsible changed that,” Rodriguez added.

Hickenlooper’s campaign said the ad is a gross mischaracterization of the public-private partnerships that he and other governors used to improve Colorado. Anadarko donated money years before the explosion for a children’s reading program and wildfire relief fund, Hickenlooper’s campaign noted. The campaign also pointed to several regulatory steps Hickenlooper took after the explosion.

“Erin Martinez is absolutely correct — Washington Republicans must take down their ‘horrifying’ and false attack and stop exploiting this tragedy and distorting the facts to score political points,” said Melissa Miller, a Hickenlooper spokeswoman.

Bruised for weeks by revelations of unethical behavior, racial gaffes and unforced tactical errors, the former governor and longtime front-runner in the U.S. Senate race has sought help from the same Democratic establishment that coaxed him into the contest last August, despite his own .

“Judging by the actions of the candidates, it����ap actually looking like a somewhat more competitive race than I would have expected,” said Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver. “Hickenlooper is spending like crazy and a lot of people are rushing in to defend him, seemingly out of some concern there’s a chance that (Andrew) Romanoff could win this thing.”

Colorado’s top Democrats, including the governor and attorney general, criticized Hickenlooper’s Democratic opponent Friday. U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker Hickenlooper over the weekend.

Meanwhile, his allies here in Colorado and in Washington, D.C., have taken to the airwaves to defend his ethics violations and attack Romanoff, the other Democrat in the race. Millions of dollars have been spent on TV and digital ads.

“We could not sit idly by as the Romanoff campaign continued to attack John Hickenlooper, and Cory Gardner and national Republican groups jumped into the middle of this primary — running millions of dollars in negative ads aimed at taking down Hickenlooper,” said Mannie Rodriguez, treasurer of Let����ap Turn Colorado Blue, a super PAC that surfaced last week and almost immediately revealed it was spending more than $1 million to broadcast .

The group’s spokesman, Curtis Hubbard, is a longtime Hickenlooper supporter. Rodriguez says Let����ap Turn Colorado Blue is “made up of people who know that our best shot at defeating Cory Gardner is with John Hickenlooper.” Who, exactly, those people are is unknown and will not be known until after the primary, when the super PAC must disclose its donors.

Over the weekend, the Romanoff campaign told supporters that attack ads aired by Hickenlooper’s allies are proof Romanoff is “pulling ahead.” No public polling of the two-man race has been conducted but Romanoff’s internal polling, conducted last week, showed Hickenlooper was still in the lead. In an interview Monday, Romanoff said he has strong momentum and believes his opponent is desperate.

“He told us he’d be a terrible senator, I just didn’t realize he’d try so hard to prove it,” he said. “I think when you break the law, when you defy a subpoena, when you get held in contempt, when you compare yourself to slaves, when you tell us George Floyd was shot, when you don’t understand what Black Lives Matter means, and when you demonize progressives in your own party … you make it harder to win.”

Last week, Romanoff was endorsed by Colorado’s largest private-sector union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, and Crisanta Duran, a former speaker of the Colorado House, among others.

Hickenlooper’s luckless June has jeopardized what was once believed to be a cakewalk to the Democratic nomination for a popular former governor. It also calls into question Hickenlooper’s best argument for why Democrats should choose him — that he’s the safe bet to beat Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Yuma. Romanoff says Hickenlooper now has baggage that makes him a liability.

Colorado Republicans watched Hickenlooper stumble through the first half of June and nodded in vindication. They acknowledge that polling shows Hickenlooper, if he is the Democratic nominee, would begin the general election contest with a significant lead over Gardner. But they’ve believed for months that the gap will narrow greatly by November as Hickenlooper’s flaws are showcased.

“I don’t think any of the Democrats expected to see Hickenlooper get this deeply in trouble, but Republicans saw it all along,” said Kristi Burton Brown, vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party. “We know he can’t compete with the big boys.”

Republicans have stepped off the sidelines and inserted themselves into the Democratic primary after seeing an opportunity to beat Hickenlooper now. Both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Gardner campaign have aired anti-Hickenlooper ads while Democrats have considered their candidates.

“Republicans are so anxious to run against Andrew and not John,” said Alan Salazar, a longtime Democratic strategist and current chief of staff to Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. He supports Hickenlooper but says he’s friends with both.

For all the gaffes, missteps and flubs that Hickenlooper has committed this month, he still has massive institutional advantages, including a powerhouse fundraising operation, unmatched name recognition and the deep pockets of Democratic groups that are willing to part with millions of dollars to help him.

The Hickenlooper campaign also points to more than a dozen recent endorsements from public officials who previously backed Romanoff. This is proof of Hickenlooper’s own momentum and growing support, his campaign says.

Kyle Saunders, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, agrees that the nomination is still Hickenlooper’s to lose.

“Even with this bad June, it left a mark on Hickenlooper but I’m not sure that it takes him down,” Saunders says. “It’s ethics violations; it’s a few flubs. Those sorts of things can detract from a candidate’s campaign, absolutely, but I don’t think these have risen to the scale needed to take him down.”

“It shouldn’t take a crisis to teach us our health care system is broken,” says a solemn Romanoff, who was speaker of the Colorado House and president of Mental Health Colorado before running for U.S. Senate.

“If you have enough money, you can buy the best care in the world. If you’re an insurance company, you can even buy Congress,” he adds. “I’m Andrew Romanoff. I approve this message and I’m running for the Senate because when you’re fighting for your life, you shouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for it.”

Health care reform has been a top campaign topic for Romanoff, who supports a single-payer, or Medicare for All, approach. He’ll face John Hickenlooper in a Democratic primary June 30, and the winner will take on Sen. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, in November.

“Andrew Romanoff’s unabashed support for Medicare for All and the far-left agenda championed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would put Colorado’s rural hospitals, jobs, and economic growth at risk,” said Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Romanoff’s campaign says the ad will air on Denver TV networks and cable, as well as digital outlets, between now and June 30. The campaign says it spent more than $160,000 on ad time this week alone.

Gardner has debuted two TV ads, and Hickenlooper has begun broadcasting one. All three candidates have focused on themselves in their ads, eschewing attacks.

Sitting on a porch outside his Denver home, the Democrat looks into the camera and, for 30 seconds, explains that Colorado had the best economy in the country when he left office last year. As Congress now tries to rebuild an economy ravaged by pandemic shutdowns, he says it should do so “from the bottom up.”

“Instead of handing out loans to big corporations, they should be helping small businesses stay in business,” Hickenlooper . “Instead of insider deals, they should help families who are struggling.”

Hickenlooper will face Andrew Romanoff in a Democratic primary June 30. The winner will take on Sen. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, in early November.

“After months of cringe-worthy videos, embarrassing gaffes, and serious ethics troubles, Hickenlooper is coming off the sideline with nothing more than hot air,” said Jerrod Dobkin, Gardner’s campaign spokesman. “Meanwhile, Cory has secured lifesaving personal protective equipment, COVID-19 testing kits, and small business loans to help Coloradans through this crisis.”

Romanoff’s campaign says it expects to release an ad “very soon.” On Wednesday, the liberal challenger told supporters in an email that he had just finished recording a TV ad and hoped to raise $120,000 to broadcast it.

“No amount of advertising can mask the fundamental divide in this race: between our grassroots campaign for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal — and two corporate candidates who oppose our progressive agenda,” Romanoff said of Hickenlooper and Gardner on Sunday.

Hickenlooper’s campaign says it will spend more than $100,000 broadcasting its ad. The campaign did not say when the ad was filmed but claimed it was produced in strict accordance with state and city health guidelines. Everyone on the set maintained six feet of distance and wore face coverings, and Hickenlooper wore a mask between takes, according to a campaign spokesman.

The ad’s debut comes one day before the state’s Independent Ethics Commission decides whether to enforce a subpoena against Hickenlooper and force him to testify at a Thursday hearing. Hickenlooper’s attorney believes his client should not have to testify until the two can safely be in the same room together.

“Clearly he is more comfortable around a film crew than answering questions from the commission or voters about his use of corporate-paid private jets and a Maserati limo in violation of the Colorado Constitution,” said Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Hickenlooper is now the second U.S. Senate candidate to hit the airwaves. Gardner launched a TV ad in the middle of May, a cheery roundup of his efforts to obtain surgical masks from overseas. Last week, a campaign finance reform group ; Gardner’s campaign adamantly denies that.

“I’ve always said Washington was a lousy place for a guy like me who wants to get things done – but this is no time to walk away from the table,” the former governor of Colorado . “… I’m not done fighting for the people of Colorado.”

In the video, filmed at the Denver brewpub he founded, Hickenlooper echoes his presidential pitch to voters, which focused on ending the conflict in Washington. And he promises to work on fighting climate change, prescription drug prices and economic inequity.

“We ought to be working together to move this country forward and stop the political nonsense,” he says.

His entry is certain to upend the nascent Democratic Senate primary, which already includes 11 candidates. Early polls have shown Hickenlooper outpacing Gardner in a hypothetical matchup. However, he is not expected to clear the Democratic field. Several Senate candidates pledged to stay in last week after Hickenlooper dropped out of the presidential race.

Partisan control of the U.S. Senate hangs on a handful of key races, including Colorado’s. Gardner is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans up for re-election in 2020, and national Democrats, who want to leave nothing to chance, leaned heavily on Hickenlooper to run against him.

By entering the Senate primary, Hickenlooper fulfills their wishes. However, his candidacy could dash the dreams of Colorado progressives who had hoped the seat would be filled by a woman or person of color — adding diversity to Colorado’s Washington delegation.

Hickenlooper’s decision also reverses months of public statements bluntly rejecting the idea of a Senate run. In February, he said, “I’m not cut out to be a senator.” In May, he said he would “be a difficult candidate” for Senate.

Republicans have been preemptively criticizing Hickenlooper since he abandoned his White House bid.

“John Hickenlooper is desperate to redeem himself after flopping on the national stage, but we think he said it best just a few months ago: he is ‘not cut out’ for the Senate,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said Wednesday. “This crowded Senate field has been in a race to the left, and Hickenlooper’s quixotic presidential bid did not do him any favors in proving he can compete in any race in 2020.”

Curtis Hubbard, a Democratic strategist who publicly lobbied Hickenlooper to enter the race, said the candidate will be able to walk back those comments with ease.

“When you’re running for one office, it����ap tough to answer that you would be interested in another office. And in this instance, it����ap clear from the public outpouring for him to enter the race and from his accomplishments in Colorado that the Senate campaign is the right place for John Hickenlooper,” Hubbard said. “He’s always been one to look at the facts and then make a decision. Having looked at the facts, it would not surprise me that he understands the right decision is to enter the race and make Cory Gardner a one-term senator.”

The former governor’s entry makes an even dozen candidates in the Democratic race for the Senate. He is sure to reorder the top tier, which has been led by former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and former state Sen. Mike Johnston in early polling. Johnston has also led the race in fundraising, bringing in more last quarter than Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign.

Candidates in the race’s lower tier, made up primarily of progressives, are sure to criticize Hickenlooper’s moderate stances. Many have expressed frustration at efforts to recruit the centrist white male rather than support a progressive woman. Colorado has never elected a woman to the Senate.

Meanwhile, Gardner’s campaign on Wednesday aimed to lump Hickenlooper with the rest of the Democratic field.

“To us Governor Hickenlooper is just another liberal in the clown car,” Casey Contres, Gardner’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “Whoever their party nominates will be wildly out of step with Colorado and we look forward to facing them in the general election.”

And the biggest casualty of all this may be our political discourse.

With Pompeo in some peril, the White House and Republicans deployed the nuclear option of talking points: Questioning their opponents’ patriotism.

“Look, at some point, Democrats have to decide whether they love this country more than they hate this president,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday morning on Fox News.

Shortly thereafter, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a news release titled “Party before country?” It said that “Democrats are taking ‘party before country’ to a new level” and suggested that their votes against Pompeo translated to “national security consequences be damned.”

Sanders employed a version of her quote above in January during the immigration debate. A week later, she said it again of Democrats who failed to applaud during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Trump at the time suggested that those Democrats might be guilty of treason, which the White House clarified was just a joke. But Trump also said, with nary a hint of humor, that Democrats “certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

Trump’s campaign then released an ad calling the Democrats’ behavior “disgraceful” and saying they were “disrespecting our country.”

The strategy is apparent. Republicans are arguing that too much is at stake internationally for Pompeo’s nomination to be delayed or for him to enter the world stage as damaged goods. And they may have a point that Democrats’ opposition carries with it some real downsides. They also may have a point that politics have seeped into things they perhaps shouldn’t and that confirmations of nominees like Pompeo used to be forgone conclusions. (Though Democrats, it bears emphasizing, hardly have a monopoly on such behavior.)

But this certainly represents a coarsening of our political rhetoric. The GOP’s argument here doesn’t allow for principled objections to Pompeo’s nomination. This argument deems concerns over his comments about Muslims and gays as invalid. The logical extension of this talking point is that no secretary of state nominee should ever be opposed for confirmation, no matter his or her qualifications, because it could hurt national security.

It’s worth noting that the NRSC’s patriotism critique initially included one of its own, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who had said repeatedly that he opposed Pompeo’s nomination. But Monday afternoon, Paul reversed course and said he would support Pompeo, giving him majority support in the committee.

This kind of argument has seeped into national security and foreign policy decisions before. Back when Democrats opposed the Iraq War, some cast that as being opposed to the troops or rooting for failure. The angry takedown by then-Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., of his own party at the 2004 Republican National Convention sounded a lot like what the White House is saying today:

“While young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief. Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today’s Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. In their warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution.”

But comments from the official GOP and the White House were more veiled. As Brendan Nyhan catalogued, George W. Bush called opponents of the war “defeatists” and contrasted them with a “loyal opposition.” Karl Rove questioned critics of Guantanamo Bay conditions by saying that they put troops in danger and that “no more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.” The chairman of the Republican National Committee said, “Democrat leaders never miss an opportunity to put politics before our nation’s security.”

It’s one thing to accuse the other side of playing politics on very serious matters and harming national security; it’s another to question whether they are acting in the interests of their country and how much they love their country. What these voices hinted at in the mid-2000s is now being said in much blunter terms — and seems to be coming up with a regularity that suggests that it will be a fixture going forward.

And that may be the most lasting impact of the now-momentary drama over Pompeo’s nomination. In the context of a norm-busting Trump era that has redefined the rules of political engagement, it may seem like a small bridge to have crossed. But it’s significant nonetheless.

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper.

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