April 09, 2017 02:38 PM UTC

Ed Perlmutter Launches Gubernatorial Campaign

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP reporting from the Natural Grocers in Golden, CO this afternoon:

Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-Golden) has officially announced that he is running for governor of Colorado.

Perlmutter, who has represented Jefferson County in Congress since 2006, made the announcement Sunday at Natural Grocers in Golden…

“The Trump administration, coupled with the gridlock that exists in Congress, really is causing things to go backward,” Perlmutter said in an interview. “I feel I can provide more service and leadership at home than I can in Washington.”

“The Republican Party can’t agree with itself right now. When the majority party is kind of in a chaotic state, nothing moves,” he said.

The crowd at today’s rally was by all reports very large, spilling out of the parking lot of the Golden grocery store where Perlmutter has often held his “Government in the Grocery” outreach events while serving in Congress:

Perlmutter’s long representation of Jefferson County, considered Colorado’s foremost bellwether of how the state is trending politically, make him the candidate to beat in both the Democratic primary as well as the general election in 2018. Perlmutter’s speech today kept to the positive message he has used to good effect throughout his political career–an approach borne out by Gov. John Hickenlooper and other politicians in both parties who have enjoyed success in Colorado in recent years.

We’ll see if Republicans have anything similarly hopeful to say in their own campaigns, the difference that defined the last gubernatorial election between Hickenlooper and Bob Beauprez in 2014. Beauprez’s relentlessly nasty and dour message helped Hickenlooper greatly in an election Republicans otherwise enjoyed “wave year” success. These days, no Republican besides Cory Gardner–and sometimes not even Gardner–remembers how to smile.

And that makes this Ed Perlmutter’s race to lose.