Owens slams Democrats’ ads boosting ‘2nd-tier’ GOP candidates for Colorado governor, US Senate

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens on Friday denounced expensive ad campaigns launched this week by Democratic groups as a “disingenuous” attempt to influence the state’s Republican primaries for governor and U.S. Senate by encouraging GOP voters to nominate candidates he describes as “second tier.”

“The Democrats are focusing on the Republican primaries because their only way to win is to nominate weak candidates in my party,” said Owens, who served two terms as governor from 1999 to 2007. “And that’s why I’m speaking out on this.”

A pair of TV ads hit the air this week describing Republicans Ron Hanks and Greg Lopez — primary candidates for senator and governor, respectively — as “too conservative for Colorado,” noting that both support banning abortion and agree with former President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen, among other positions.

Hanks is facing wealthy construction company owner Joe O’Dea in the U.S. Senate primary, and Lopez is running against Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent, for the gubernatorial nomination.

The ads appear to be the latest incarnation of a strategy occasionally employed by both parties to push more extreme candidates during a primary, hoping the other party’s more partisan voters will nominate candidates who won’t fare as well in a general election.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Gov. Jared Polis, both Democrats, are running for reelection without opposition in their party’s primary.

Colorado voters began receiving ballots this week. They’re due back to county clerks by June 28.

“This is wrong in a democracy,” Owens said. “This is putting your thumb on the scales just because they have big money and no record to run on. All they have is money.”

Added Owens, who has endorsed O’Dea and Ganahl: “Let the Democrats defend their record. Let them treat the voters with the respect the voters deserve and address their record versus the Republican candidates’. But in this case, they’re spending 100 times more than Ron Hanks is to nominate Ron Hanks. And in Heidi’s race, they’re doing something similar.”

A recently formed federal super PAC called Democratic Colorado is spending at least $800,000 this week on TV ads aimed at Hanks, and Colorado Information Network, a Democratic state-level independent expenditure committee, is spending at least as much on ads featuring Lopez, according to media buyers.

Neither Hanks nor Lopez has spent any money on TV advertising.

A spokeswoman for the group running the ad about Hanks denied the Democrats are meddling in the GOP primary.

“We are an organization committed to ensuring that Colorado does not elect a Republican to the U.S. Senate and giving voters the facts about who’s running to represent them,” veteran Democratic consultant Alvina Vasquez said in an email. “Ron Hanks is simply too conservative for Colorado and voters deserve to know the truth about him.”

Owens scoffed at the notion the ads are meant to do anything other than boost the candidates the Democrats perceive as easier to beat in November.

“The Democrats can’t run on their economic record,” he said. “They can’t run on their criminal justice record. They can’t run on their record. So what they’re trying to do is nominate the weakest candidate in both races, who they hope to be able to run against.”

By nearly every measure, Hanks and Lopez are running to the right in their primaries. Although they each earned top-line designation on the primary ballot by winning the most delegate votes at the Republican state assembly, both trail their primary rivals in fundraising and endorsements by wide margins.

Owens said the ads’ timing gives away their sponsors’ motive.

If the ads had started the day after Hanks, for instance, won the primary, Owens said, that would be “normal political practice, trying to label him before he has a chance to establish his own identity. But doing it with this amount of buy for the candidates who are clearly running second in each primary is what makes this different. They’re not going after the frontrunners, and not going after the frontrunners for a reason. They want to run against the second tier.”

Owens’ remarks follow a fusillade of criticism from O’Dea, Ganahl and the state Republican Party that greeted the ads’ debut on Wednesday.

For his part, Hanks told Colorado Politics he welcomed the boost the advertising could provide his grassroots campaign and said it accurately describes him as “the only choice on the Republican side.”