January 31, 2022 10:46 AM UTC

Holy Burn Rate, Batman!

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• by: Colorado Pols

Doug Lamborn is seeking his ninth term in Congress this year. Since first winning election in 2006, the Colorado Springs Republican has somehow managed to continually make it back to Congress every two years despite a solid record of accomplishing virtually nothing. The 2022 cycle may be his toughest re-election challenge yet.

Lamborn is in deep trouble with an ongoing ethics investigation related to his alleged mistreatment of staff and, among other things, allowing his grown son to live in a storage closet in the basement of the U.S. Capitol. That investigation is accompanied by a lawsuit from a former staffer, which means there is more than one avenue by which these allegations could damage Lamborn politically.

Lamborn’s Republican Primary challenger, State Rep. Dave Williams, has been hammering the incumbent Congressman over his ethical lapses — and those problems have also been eating into Lamborn’s campaign bank account. Lamborn has never been a prolific fundraiser, but in the last quarter of 2021, he spent more money than he raised, which works out to a burn rate of [checks math]: Really bad. Among Lamborn’s largest expenses was a $21,000 payment to a law firm in Jackson, MS called Watkins & Eager.

Fortunately for Lamborn, he still finished 2021 with $438,937 in the bank. We’d imagine he’ll need every penny of that warchest, since it won’t be easy to convince new donors to write big checks when you’re facing a serious congressional ethics investigation that is running up a big legal tab.