President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) J. Sonnenberg

(R) Ted Harvey

20%↑

15%↑

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

(R) Doug Bruce

20%

20%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

40%↑

20%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
April 13, 2016 05:55 PM UTC

Yes, Darryl Glenn Has Taken Control of the Republican Senate Race

  • 21 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Darryl Glenn, the new favorite in the race for the Republican Senate nomination.
Darryl Glenn, the new favorite in the race for the Republican Senate nomination.

When El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn concluded his remarks at the Colorado Republican State Convention on Saturday, delegates began murmuring among themselves about “The Speech.” The whispers seemed prescient.

Glenn’s convention speech helped catapult him to the top of the Republican field running for U.S. Senate, and by capturing 68% of the total delegate vote, he knocked three other challengers out of the race altogether (Tim Neville, Peg Littleton, and Jerry Natividad will not appear on the Primary ballot because they failed to exceed 30% of the delegate vote – the minimum threshold for ballot access). Here at Colorado Pols, we had anticipated that Glenn might do well enough to gain a spot on the June ballot, but we never would have predicted that he would be able to scuttle the campaign of presumed frontrunner Neville.

We’ve updated The Big Line to reflect our changing perceptions of the 2016 Senate race, which means we have some explaining to do for the new top Republican name on the Line. When Glenn first announced that he would run for Senate in January 2015, we initially wrote it off as a quixotic quest by a candidate who was not well-known outside of Colorado Springs. Some 16 months later, Glenn’s overwhelming convention victory was so astounding that it caused us to reassess the GOP race altogether…

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: We still don’t know how any of the candidates performed in the last full fundraising quarter before the Primary – Q1 fundraising reports won’t be publicly available until next week — but we can read between the lines a little here. It’s safe to assume that none of the GOP candidates were able to pull together a sizable fundraising quarter because we haven’t heard a peep from anyone about campaign cash; there’s no strategic advantage to keeping quiet if, say, Jon Keyser raised $2 million in the first three months of the year. Campaigns don’t sit on good news any more than you would.

Mail ballots will start showing up at the homes of Republican voters in about eight weeks, which doesn’t leave much time for speculation. For the purposes of this analysis, we’re also going to assume that all four candidates who sought to petition onto the ballot (Keyser, Jack Graham, Robert Blaha, and Ryan Frazier) will be successful once the Secretary of State’s office goes through their signatures in full; we’re fully aware that some combination of these four names might not make the final ballot, but we don’t have enough information there to make any assumptions.

 

Wait, Who is Darryl Glenn, Again?

Glenn is a two-term El Paso County Commissioner and retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force who he has been running for the Republican Senate nomination longer than any other candidate (Glenn formally announced his campaign in January 2015). He calls himself a “Christian Conservative Constitutionalist” and has staked out far-right positions on Climate Change, abortion, and a general opposition to the current Republican leadership in Congress. What really separates Glenn from the rest of the GOP field, however, is his natural charisma; he is funny and endearing in front of an audience, which is a far cry from the dour demeanor of Graham and the boyish self-consciousness of Keyser. These traits should translate well in television ads if Glenn can raise enough money for a decent ad buy.

 

He Won at the GOP Convention; Can He Win a Primary?

In politics we often talk about a candidate’s “path to victory,” and this is where Glenn has the upper hand over the rest of the field: There are multiple roads that can guide Glenn to the GOP Senate nomination.

[mantra-pullquote align=”left” textalign=”leftt” width=”33%”]“I will gladly put a patch on my shoulder right now that says I will not vote for Mitch McConnell” [/mantra-pullquote]

Glenn is positioning himself to the far-right of the other candidates in this race, which should have significant appeal for a Republican electorate that is quite clearly not interested in “politics as usual.” Four-time incumbent Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs) almost didn’t even make the Primary ballot this year, thanks to a surprise challenge from Calandra Vargas, whom he’ll still need to defeat in June in order to keep his seat. In CD-3, Rep. Scott Tipton couldn’t prevent little-known 28-year-old Carbondale resident Alex Beinstein from making the ballot with 40% of the delegate vote. When you consider that even Rep. Mike Coffman had to sweat it out before narrowly avoiding a Primary challenge, Glenn’s blowout win at the GOP convention suddenly seems more like a revelation than a surprise. Republican discontent with the status quo in Colorado apparently runs much, much deeper than anyone imagined, which is a huge advantage for the one candidate who can unequivocally claim the support of grassroots Republicans.

It’s also critical to note that, in a crowded field of candidates, Glenn doesn’t need to capture a majority of the votes in the June Primary in order to secure the nomination. With so many candidates on the ballot, Glenn’s “win number” looks a lot different than it would in a head-to-head matchup.

Consider: In the 2010 GOP gubernatorial Primary, Dan Maes defeated Scott McInnis at the state GOP convention and went on to win the Primary with a narrow 50.7 % of the vote. A total of 387,253 votes were cast in the 2010 Primary; Maes won the election with 196,238 votes (compared to 190,907 for McInnis).

If we use those 2010 numbers as a guide, Glenn could capture the GOP nomination for Senate with as few as 78,000 total votes (for a rough approximation, divide the total number of votes cast in the 2010 Primary and distribute them equally among the five candidates in 2016). When he was re-elected as an El Paso County Commissioner in 2014, Glenn received more than half of that total (42,750 total votes) in El Paso County alone. Obviously it would be an oversimplification to imply that Glenn can pick up the same number of voters in a U.S. Senate Primary, but the point here is that Glenn does have a base that he can work with…and as we learned from “The Speech” at the GOP State Convention, the base likes what he has to say.

Glenn’s alliterative description of himself as a “Christian, Constitutional Conservative” is usually followed by some form of declaration that he is 100% pro-life and a staunch supporter of gun rights and the Second Amendment.

Here’s Glenn speaking at a candidate forum in Montrose on March 5. Many Republican candidates try to rail against “Washington D.C.” and the “Republican Establishment,” but Glenn might be the only GOP candidate in the race who isn’t holding back:

“What I’m tired of is the establishment sitting here telling us what we need to do,” says Glenn in the clip above. “I’ve traveled across the state and the one consistent thing that I’ve heard is there are people who are extremely frustrated with politicians promising one thing and then going up to Washington, DC and selling out.

“I think it’s time to stop apologizing for American Exceptionalism and let the world know that America is back in business — that we’re going to continue to lead. And that’s why I’m here. You need to understand that I’m going to represent each and every one of you. I don’t put my finger up in the air and try to figure out which way to vote. I will gladly put a patch on my shoulder right now that says I will not vote for Mitch McConnell.” [Pols emphasis]

Glenn is also not shy about going right after Keyser, the “establishment” candidate who was hand-picked by the NRSC after serving just one-half of one term in the state legislature. In this clip from the April 5 9News debate, Glenn openly questions the experience of Keyser:

Keyser is a bit of a one-trick pony who is trying to sell himself as a candidate based largely on his service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this is also a problem with Glenn on the ballot. Glenn served 14 years in the military, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force. It surely won’t go unmentioned that Glenn outranks Keyser.

As for the rest of the GOP field of candidates, Glenn is far and away the most experienced politician of the bunch. His biggest problem is going to be fundraising; Glenn finished the Q4 (2015) cycle with a few coins and some pocket lint in his Senate campaign account. The good news is that Glenn doesn’t need to raise as much money as the other four candidates because he didn’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on paid signature gatherers. Glenn should be able to get a financial boost from winning the Convention outright, just as Dan Maes was able to round up lots of checks following his 2010 GOP Convention victory.

Political discussions in Colorado will be focused for the next few months on the Donald Trump/Ted Cruz battle for the Republican Presidential nomination. You’ll be reading and hearing a lot about “Republican insiders” and the “Republican elite” trying to steal the election from GOP voters, and this talk will only help Glenn as he campaigns for the U.S. Senate nomination. By pulling off such an impressive win at the GOP State Convention, Glenn now owns the title of “the grassroots’ choice.” That’s a title that carries significantly more weight for Republican voters in 2016 – much more than it has in a long time.

Comments

21 thoughts on “Yes, Darryl Glenn Has Taken Control of the Republican Senate Race

    1. I have a problem with 100% anti-slavery and 100% anti-holocaust….

      Unborn persons have the same constitutional rights to life and liberty that you have.

       

      1. Absolutely false. There is nothing in the constitution about rights to life liberty or anything else for unborn persons. Even anti-choicers recognize that which is why they want a federal personhood amendment.

        I submit that even anti-choicers recognize the distinction between the born and the unborn whethe they admit it or not. I doubt very much that an anti-choicer would rescue a dozen fertilized eggs from a clinic in a fire instead of one living baby if they had to make that choice. I don't see anti-choicers treating fertility clinics the same way they treat clinics that provide abortions even though fertiity clinics routinely dispose of embryos. Why aren't the picketing fertility clinics? 

        Why aren't they  claiming that a woman who contracts with a doctor to have an abortion not be punished if they really see  the unborn as exactly the same as a two year old? If they are the same morally and under the constitution why is the woman who has an abortion any less guilty of murder than a woman who hires someone to commit a murder?

        Clearly not even those who claim to believe that the unborn are persons equal to the born don't really believe it.

        1. Lots of errors. Rushed and no edit. It should be….. Why are they claiming that a woman who has an abortion shouldn't be punished…. plus other missing letter type stuff.

          Can't wait to get some kind of editor back. Keep fighting the good fight ColPols!heart

          Or for paleotroll to give up. I predict he/she/it won't last long.

      2. The problem with giving fetuses full constitutional rights is with the second amendment.   It gets really uncomfortable for Mom when the unborn child opens up with that AR-15.

  1. I don't know how it will play out on the campaign trail, nor how Darryl Glenn comes across in other settings, but from the dais at county commissioner meetings, he is arrogant, lecturing and condescending to anyone and everyone who dares say something with which he disagrees. In other words, a jerk. Apparently he has been able to sell a different personality on the campaign trail so far, but I have no doubt he would function as a Senator the same way he has as a commissioner.

  2. Having known and observed Glenn for the past decade, I have never witnessed arrogance – just the opposite particularly at his townhall meetings where he addresses current issues and personally greets people with appreciation for them taking time out of their lives to be there. Glenn's stellar win at the state GOP convention reflects his ability to communicate honestly and tap the concerns of the electorate. Having a very small campaign coffer, Glenn used his limited funds wisely in touring the state and speaking to voters. This underscores the importance of candidate forums, debates and meet-n-greets. I don't agree with Glenn on every plank of his platform, but I do appreciate his integrity. Thanks for a well researched story – enjoyed the read!

    1. Either you have never observed Glenn's treatment of people at Commissioner meetings who disagree with him, or your view of arrogance and condensation is much different from mine. I don't doubt his commitment to his beliefs, and that is one definition of integrity, but he displays no tolerance nor understanding of those different from himself. And he certainly wants to impose his social views on others, and he tries to use his elected office to impose those views. And that is not the limited government he claims to support–much the opposite.

  3. The similarity of experience between Glenn and Keyser begins and ends with being in the Air Force. I'm trying to find more about each of the remaining guys, and the only information I can find about Keyser gives me zero confidence in his candidacy. To top it off, the last story I read from the Post was him going to Vegas last Saturday to solicit big donors. If he's the establishment  candidate, which I guess he is, what do they have against competent candidates? Glenn calling out Keyser in that posted video is great.

    As an independent, I like Darryl Glenn, but I certainly don't agree on every social issue. The thing is you don't have to agree on everything. I have confidence that he would do his best, if elected, to knowledgeably represent this state in Congress. Glenn's really hung in there and after he gave that rousing speech, he earned the right to kick Neville to the curb.
     

    1. He is a pure far rightie on every issue from the social to the fiscal to foreign policy So if that's what you like, he's your guy. If you're any sort of moderate, he's not. Just because he has a nice n manner doesn't make him any less extreme.

      1. Just ordinary citizens venting their honest views.

           whirr, click, honest views

         whirr, click, honest views

         whirr, click, honest views

         whirr, click, honest views

         whirr, click, honest views

      1. I heard Donald Trump in some clips from last night. ..

        He stood in front of the audience talking about "winning". Oh, boy…we are gonna win so much the Donald is gonna get phone calls from Buffalo asking President Trump, "can we please stop winning so much?" Its' all about winning ..winning , winning, winning!!…..Oh, by the way,remember the famous salute and chant used by the Nazis? Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!…that means "Hail Victory"

        He then kept repeating, "America first, folks, America first! I couldn't help remember one of Adolphs' favorite phrases, " Deutchland uber alles!"  which means , "Germany above all"!

        Is it just me?

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

211 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!