January 03, 2024 10:19 AM UTC

Mike Lynch Runs For Buck's Seat Too, Because Why The Hell Not

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul reports, the heavily congested race to succeed retiring Rep. Ken Buck in Colorado’s safely red Fourth Congressional District added yet another contender to the mix this morning as Colorado House Minority leader Mike Lynch threw his designer cowboy hat in the ring:

“I’m sick of being represented by people that are not sincere in their service,” Lynch told The Colorado Sun. “I think what’s wrong with this country is (Congress) has become a job where your first concern is yourself. I think the people of CD4 deserve to have somebody that’s fighting for them who knows how to do it.”

The 4th District seat will be open after U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor, announced Nov. 1 that he wouldn’t run for reelection this year, citing the GOP’s embrace of election conspiracies and Congress’ inability to get work done.

The 4th District, which spans the Eastern Plains and includes much of Douglas County and Loveland, is considered the most Republican congressional district in Colorado, a state that has recently been dominated by Democrats. The 4th District leans 27 points in the GOP’s favor, according to a nonpartisan analysis of election results from 2016 to 2020 by staffers for the Colorado legislature.

So the first takeaway from this announcement is further evidence that Rep. Lauren Boebert’s desperate switch to run for Buck’s safer seat is not only failing to clear the primary field, she isn’t deterring additional candidates from jumping into the race. A good contrast to this was then-CD-4 Rep. Cory Gardner’s jump into the 2014 GOP U.S. Senate primary, which swamped the extant field of second-tier candidates. Boebert isn’t having anything like the same effect on this race, and that’s very bad for her prospects.

As for Mike Lynch, it’s difficult to see what distinguishes him from the other candidates in the race with state legislative experience. Lynch’s job as House Minority Leader has been to effect whatever limited obstruction he can on the wrong side of a Democratic supermajority while making excuses for the embarrassments in his caucus like Reps. Scott Bottoms and Ken DeGraaf. Primary voters have both better-known candidates with legislative experience in career politician Jerry Sonnenberg, and more stridently conservative choices like Rep. Richard Holtorf. And that’s even assuming that GOP primary voters in the district care about experience at all with “MAGA King” Trent Leisy and conservative culture warrior Deb Flora in the mix.

Or for that matter, Lauren Boebert. We will say that despite Boebert’s telling failure to clear the primary field, there’s a scenario in which a gaggle of candidates dividing the opposition to Boebert helps her compete. That pressure along with the natural attrition of candidates who fail to thrive makes it likely that the field will narrow well before the June 25th primary.

In the meantime, we’re filling up the clown car.