December 20, 2021 03:51 PM UTC

Kulmann Won't Say if Presidential Election Was Legitimate

• 2 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(Aaand another one — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Another Republican congressional candidate in Colorado is refusing to say whether last year’s presidential election was legitimate.

Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, who’s running for Colorado’s new congressional seat, refused to answer the question last week, “Was the 2020 election stolen?”

In an extraordinary exchange with Republican radio host George Brauchler, who himself sits near the top of a thin GOP bench in Colorado, Kulmann dodged the election question so brazenly that Brauchler responded with, “That feels like either a yes or no; I don’t know how to interpret that, Jan, and I’m not trying to push too hard here.”

Brauchler: I’m going to ask you about two topics that are constantly in the news over the past 18 plus months, and you’re going to be asked this by the mainstream media. I guess I’m not part of the mainstream media. Nonetheless, I’m going to ask you ahead of time just to — and I’ve asked everybody this that’s been on: one, was the 2020 election stolen? Where do you come down on that? And, two, vaccine and mask mandates? Where do you come down on those?
Kulmann: Well, we start with the election, so knocking on doors for the last few months, what I heard was that there’s a real fear that people feel like their votes are not going to count. And so what I’ve encouraged people to do is, if you don’t vote, your vote doesn’t count. And so we can worry about policies that make sure that election integrity is the foremost important thing that we have because I want to make it as easy to vote as possible but as hard to cheat as possible.
Brauchler: I love that, but if I’m Marshall Zelinger, I’m going to push you and say, ‘In your opinion, was the 2020 election stolen?’
Kulmann: I think Biden is the president. And what’s unfortunate is he’s a horrible president. And so we have an opportunity in ’22 to take back the House and we have an opportunity in ’24 to take back the White House.
Brauchler: That feels like either a yes or no. I don’t know how to interpret that, Jan. And I’m not trying to push too hard here. But I want to be clear, –no other show you go on –like on the TV– will stop at just that. Those are all great answers. And by the way, they’re consistent with what I hear from a lot of people. But this is my own little advice as a guy who lost a statewide race: At some point, there’s just going to end up being a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ push to get there, and then it’ll get spun a different way. Let me ask you the other one where are you on the mask and the vaccine mandate?
Kulmann: I am absolutely against vaccine mandates. I’m pro-vaccine, I actually got the vaccine and I think it’s a good thing, but I don’t think that you should force that on anyone for any reason. On the mask side, I think we’ve gone too far for too long. Masks were great when we had no other opportunity. Now that we have ways of dealing with this virus in a different way, masks are just another level of control, and I think we need to figure out a way to live with this virus instead of just hiding from it.

In a monologue after his Dec. 13 KNUS interview with Kulmann, Brauchler explained in more detail why he thinks Kulman’s failure to answer the Big-Lie question is a problem.

Across Colorado, Brauchler sees “for Republicans, a growing concern of taking a position, yes or no,” said Brauchler.

Brauchler said that a candidate “needs to commit to a yes or no answer on the election question,” if they are going to “go into a race that includes any part of the metro area, where you are going to have to get as many unaffiliated voters as possible.”

“I love Jan’s answers, I think she is right across the board on those things,” said Brauchler on air. “But I think you have to commit yourself to an answer. The worry is, man, if I do that, will I lose some of the Republican base? Or do I make myself sound like a kook? I think at some point you just have to get to the point of answering the question.”

“You have to commit yourself to an answer. If you believe it was stolen, by god say it!,” Brauchler said, adding, “That’s what people want.”

Brauchler is among only a handful of prominent Colorado Republicans who’ve said that the presidential election was fairly won by Biden.

Another is state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who’s one of Kulman’s GOP opponents in the race to represent the new congressional district. Kirkmeyer says the 2020 election was “legitimate.“

Former state lawmaker Lori Saine, another GOP opponent of Kulman’s GOP opponent in Congressional District 8 race, convened Legislative Audit Committee Election Integrity Hearing last year to investigate potential election fraud, despite no evidence.

RELATED: A List of CO Republicans Who Believe the 2020 Election Was Stolen — And Some Who Don’t

Leading Republicans for governor, like CU Regent Heidi Ganahl, and for U.S. Senate, like former Olympian Eli Bremer, have joined Kulman in refusing to say if they think the 2020 presidential election was legitimate. They both say Colorado’s own election was conducted fairly.