June 10, 2020 10:39 AM UTC

The Andrew Romanoff Campaign in a Nutshell

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: On Wednesday morning, the Romanoff campaign sent out an email to supporters claiming that he won the debate on Tuesday…citing five anonymous social media messages.

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The Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate took part in a 30-minute debate on Tuesday evening that was not particularly enlightening for undecided voters. But it was the aftermath that proved more telling.

Former Gov. John Hickenlooper and former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff faced off — via video link — with 9News anchor Kyle Clark moderating (click here to watch the entire debate). It was hard for either candidate to really engage in a discussion because of the inherent delay in doing this sort of thing via remote video link; this was probably a disadvantage for Romanoff, whose attacks on Hickenlooper were harder to sustain when all speakers need to pause for a few seconds after they finished talking.

As Colorado Public Radio reports:

Hickenlooper, the establishment favorite, promised to fix “government dysfunction in Washington” and at times seemed to be debating Sen. Cory Gardner, the incumbent Republican.

Meanwhile, Romanoff staked out a progressive call for “bold structural change” and sharply criticized Hickenlooper throughout the confrontation. He even said Hickenlooper should withdraw from the race after the state’s Independent Ethics Commission’s recent findings against him.

Romanoff’s call for Hickenlooper to withdraw from the race was strategically sound, though it’s likely not going to be as effective as Colorado Republicans would hope. The most telling moment of the night, however, came in the post-debate spin cycle, where Romanoff’s campaign face-planted HARD:

This release from @Romanoff2020 might have more impact if they could have remembered Marvin Booker’s first name. “Romanoff calls on Hickenlooper to drop out of the Senate race; moderator pushes Hickenlooper to respond to the handling of Martin Booker’s death …” #copolitics

— Larry Ryckman ☀️ (@larryryckman) June 10, 2020

Oof. Bad night for quality control over at the @Romanoff2020 campaign. There’s also this in the third paragraph of that news release: “As protests over the death of Gregory Floyd continue …” #GeorgeFloyd

— Larry Ryckman ☀️ (@larryryckman) June 10, 2020

“Martin” Booker and “Gregory” Floyd? Yikes! These aren’t just copyediting mistakes; you cannot make this error when Romanoff just got finished telling voters that he is the “real” progressive candidate in the race. It doesn’t really matter who is at fault here, in terms of individual staff members, because it reflects a Romanoff campaign that has always been not quite ready for prime time.

Former Senate candidate Trish Zornio, who is supporting Hickenlooper, put a bow on this idea a bit later:

Hope we‘ll hold the men finalists as accountable for fiscal viability as we held it for the women. Let alone losing every federal race he’s run, @Romanoff2020’s campaign is essentially going broke & would likely be $10+ MILLION behind Gardner w/ only 4ms to Nov. #cosen @KyleClark

— Trish Zornio (@trish_zornio) June 10, 2020

It is inarguable that Romanoff’s campaign is putting all of its eggs into a June 30 Primary basket. This is not the wrong strategy for Romanoff at this point, but it does open him up to concerns about how his campaign might pivot to a General Election matchup if he were to defeat Hickenlooper. Romanoff’s campaign has always had June 30 circled in red marker and November 3 in pencil.

Romanoff supporters will say something to the effect of, “Senate Democrats will support whomever wins the Primary,” and they aren’t wrong in that regard…but it’s an incomplete argument. If Romanoff were to become the Democratic Senate nominee, his General Election campaign would essentially be starting from scratch on July 1. Hickenlooper has already proven that he can marshal the resources necessary for November — he led all candidates in fundraising in the last quarter, with $4.1 million raised compared to $2.5 million for incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner and $420,000 for Romanoff. Meanwhile, Republicans are doing everything they can to prop up a reeling Gardner, and that job gets significantly easier if a hollowed-out Romanoff campaign limps into the General Election.

Hickenlooper has always been the heavy favorite to win the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, and he remains the frontrunner despite his troubles in the last week. What Romanoff’s campaign really proved on Tuesday night was that it is still nowhere near ready to be the campaign it needs to be — for the Primary or the General Election.