September 05, 2018 11:10 AM UTC

Colorado Republicans Conceding Senate Majority?

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: She’s an incumbent running for re-election, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t include in this post a mention for Sen. Kerry Donovan of Vail, who is similarly crushing her Republican opponent Olen Lund in fundraising totals: $147,525 for Donovan to a mere $13,175 for Lund. For a seat considered competitive, this is another ominous and notable case of Republicans falling distantly behind.

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A look at the latest fundraising totals in four Colorado Senate races that are expected to decide control of the chamber in November, freshly updated yesterday, reveals an increasingly unmistakable disparity between Democratic candidates for these seats and their Republican opponents:

That’s a nice way of saying that these four Democratic Senate candidates, Tammy Story in SD-16, Jessie Danielson in SD-20, Brittany Pettersen in SD-22, and Faith Winter in SD-24 are all positively trouncing their Republican opponents’ fundraising totals, with little distinction between incumbents and contenders for open seats. Incumbent Sen. Tim Neville is the only Republican in these four races who appears to be trying to raise money–and even Neville’s considerable experience in this regard is coming up distantly short.

Of course, there is one detail that shouldn’t be overlooked, and it was Republican candidate Christine Jensen herself who let what appears to be the real strategy slip back in July:

“The Senate Majority Fund plans to spend 14 million dollars between now and November 6, to get people like Christine Jensen elected” -Chris Holbert, Senate Majority Leader

— Christine Jensen (@cjensen4colo) July 18, 2018

Perhaps this was offered as a pre-emptive excuse for not raising any money herself? Candidates aren’t supposed to have anything to do with the “independent” efforts on their behalf, but this year that’s more or less been dispensed with after Walker Stapleton blurred the lines between “independent” group and campaign to the point of making them disappear in all but formality. But it’s a useful contrast between these four Democratic women, who are running their own strong and well-organized races, versus Republicans who have basically ceded the hard work of campaigning to Sen. Chris Holbert.

If in November it is these women who are responsible for flipping control of the Colorado Senate back to Democrats, especially after the scandal over that chamber’s failure to police rampant sexual harassment while under Republican control, it will be a story of national importance. In that event, these four women will have the added satisfaction of having done it the old-fashioned way–with shoe leather, call time, and money they raised themselves.

As of right now, it’s looking pretty good for them.