June 10, 2018 09:03 AM UTC

Lopez Wins WCS Poll, Thinks Twitter Is Censoring Him

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• by: Colorado Pols

With the annual Western Conservative Summit wrapping up today, we have the results of one of the more useful data points that emerges from this convention–the straw poll of attendees on the year’s principal Colorado races. This year that’s of course the governor’s race, and WCS attendees have given the nod to former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez:

We did it again! RT @CentennialCCU: Straw Poll results for the #COgov race @Lopez4Governor wins. @WalkerStapleton @DougRobinsonCO @Vic4Gov #WCS18 pic.twitter.com/ujluavZAM9

— Greg Lopez (@Lopez4Governor) June 10, 2018

Thus continuing Lopez’s unlikely rise in the GOP gubernatorial race, as nominal frontrunner Walker Stapleton continues to struggle mightily under the weight of his own unforced errors. Back at the GOP state assembly, Lopez’s role as a Stapleton spoiler is primarily what rescued his campaign from the abyss–but there’s a non-zero chance that what we’re witnessing now is the beginnings of a Darryl Glenn-style upset.

Here’s Exhibit A for why Democrats would be fine with that. When Lopez wasn’t congratulating himself on Twitter for winning the WCS straw poll yesterday, he was apparently helping spread a bizarre conspiracy theory that his Tweets are being “suppressed” by that social media platform. This theory comports with broader allegations in some conservative online forums that Twitter is suppressing conservatives in general as part of an attempt to improve the quality of interactions there.

We’re not going to get into the details of this allegation, but the chances that Twitter has indeed singled out a single also-ran Colorado gubernatorial candidate with an unremarkable number of followers for “quality filtering” for any electoral purpose is extremely far-fetched. If Lopez’s account has been qualitatively filtered some way, we fully expect that is the result of a qualitative judgment made by either a human or (much more likely) an algorithm at Twitter–with no conscious desire whatsoever to “suppress conservative voices.” Because if that was the goal, there would be much more, no offense, useful conservative voices to suppress.

The thing to keep in mind is that this is how rational, well-adjusted people evaluate conspiracy theories.

That’s not the GOP primary voters who could make Lopez the next Dan Maes.