February 01, 2022 02:06 PM UTC

CO-07 Update: Two More Republicans, No Other Democrats

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• by: Colorado Pols

The race to succeed retiring Rep. Ed Perlmutter in CO-07 has a new challenger on the Republican side and more clarity for Democrats.

State Senator Brittany Pettersen (D-Lakewood) has locked down the Democratic side of the race with Perlmutter’s endorsement and subsequent endorsements from Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver); Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver); Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish); and Jason Crow (D-Aurora). In fact, we’d have a hard time even coming up with a potential Democratic challenger to Pettersen at this point.

On the Republican side, we’d bet against a run from State Rep. Colin Larson (R-Littleton), one of the few remaining Republican elected officials in Jefferson County (which is the heart of the new CO-07). Larson has been pondering a run for weeks and has regularly kicked the can down the road on a potential decision. Larson told Ernest Luning of the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman that he planned to make a decision by the end of last week, which didn’t happen.

Larson may be dissuaded in part by the decision of Timothy Reichert to seek the Republican nomination in CO-07. As The Colorado Sun reported last week, Reichert is hoping that his ability to self-fund a campaign — his announcement came with news that he had written his campaign a $500,000 check — will make up for the fact that nobody knows who he is.

Reichert is President and CEO of a Denver company called Economics Partners. He was a big donor to former President Donald Trump and has some, uh, interesting policy views; in 2010, Reichert wrote an opinion piece for a religious publication in which he argued against the use of contraceptives in general.

As far as we can tell, Republicans Laurel Imer and Erik Aadland are still running in CO-07. Some dude from Teller County named Carl Andersen has also announced his intentions to seek the Republican nomination.