May 29, 2019 12:08 PM UTC

DMB: Back For Another Run At Scott Tipton

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper reports:

Five months ago, Diane Mitsch Bush lost a bid to defeat U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., but the Steamboat Springs Democrat is already announcing her intention to take on Tipton again next year in the 3rd Congressional District.

Bush, a former state legislator and Routt County commissioner, received 43 percent of the vote last November while Tipton, a four-term incumbent from Cortez, won with 51 percent…

“We need a representative who works to fix our broken health care system, protects family agriculture, believes that women’s rights are human rights and addresses climate-change head-on,” she said in a message asking for financial contributions.

Former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush’s 2018 campaign against incumbent GOP Rep. Scott Tipton was always considered the “reach goal” for ambitious Colorado Democrats. Rep. Bush’s loss was disappointing but attributable in part to a vigorous primary and two minor candidate challengers who soaked up votes that may well have trended against the incumbent. In an interview with the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman, Mitsch Bush explained why she thinks 2020 is her year:

“Now we’re moving into a presidential year, when Democrats tend to turn out more,” she said in an interview. “We also have a major U.S. Senate seat on the ballot. I think Democratic turnout will be higher and the unaffiliated turnout that leans this way will be higher too.”

In addition, Mitsch Bush said she’s launching her campaign months earlier than she did in the last cycle and is “starting out with a much clearer strategy.”

“Last time, I was very reticent to talk about his record at first. But what I found out was that many folks just don’t know how he’s voted,” she said, citing Tipton’s record on health care, veterans issues, public lands and reproductive rights.

Since 2018 (and arguably ever since his election in 2010) Tipton has done little to distinguish himself in Congress, relying on incumbency and the district’s Republican voting advantage to survive. But there’s a good argument to make that if Tipton was going to be ousted, the 2018 “wave election” was the year for it to happen.

With that said, each election brings a new landscape, and DMB was the most qualified challenger among the Democratic CD-3 contenders last year. She’ll be the Democratic nominee in this Cook PVR R+6 district once again in the absence of something unexpected, and R+6 isn’t enough of a cushion to ever really rule out a successful challenge.