GOP Assembly Delegates Punish House, Senate Leadership

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by: Colorado Pols

House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, Senate Minority Whip Paul Lundeen (R).

Working through the results from last weekend’s county assemblies, the number one takeaway for us so far is a pummeling for the current Republican leader of the Colorado House Minority as well as the expected succeeding GOP Senate Minority Leader, each of whom lost to upstart challengers Saturday. In Northern Colorado’s House District 51, a former aide to hard-right ex-Minority Leader Patrick Neville named Austin Hein is riding high today after crushing House Minority Leader Hugh McKean with a decisive 71% of the vote:

Austin Hein was the clear winner of State House District 51 at County Assembly, which took place on March 19th at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Collins. Hein won 71% of the vote.

“I am deeply humbled by all the support I had today,” said Hein. “I was the underdog going in, but it’s clear my no-compromise conservative message resonated with delegates. People are sick of politicians who say one thing and do another.”

Austin is the sole candidate on the ballot through Assembly. Minority Leader McKean submitted petition signatures to make the ballot on March 11th, and is still awaiting confirmation.

Meanwhile, down in Colorado Springs’ Senate District 9, Senate Minority Whip Paul Lundeen, who runs the “independent” campaign arm of Colorado Senate Republicans known as the Senator Majority Fund and considered first in order of succession to lead Senate Republicans next session, lost his assembly vote by a smaller 52-48% margin to previously obscure conservative candidate Lynda Wilson. Lundeen makes the ballot, though he loses the top line listing. Both McKean and Lundeen submitted petition signatures, but for McKean who is still awaiting Secretary of State confirmation, those signatures are now his lifeline.

Assuming he makes the ballot via petition, Minority Leader McKean in particular should be deeply concerned about these results. McKean has faced growing dissent on the right of the dwindling GOP House Minority caucus for years, boiling over into a failed attempt to oust McKean at the end of last year’s legislative session. McKean losing to Pat Neville’s former aide would be a major victory for the Neville political clan and the infamous Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), who struck fear into Republican primary politics for many years before a recent pushback led by failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez and the “corporate wing” of the party.

As for Paul Lundeen? As we’ve been documenting for some time now, El Paso County Republican Party politics are sliding rightward out from under even candidates who imagine themselves to be “conservative enough.” There may in fact be no such thing as “conservative enough” to satisfy today’s thoroughly radicalized Republican base voters, or at least nothing we would recognize today as politically viable.

From Dudley Brown to Donald Trump, it’s a movement driven by retribution to ever-greater extremes.

18 thoughts on “GOP Assembly Delegates Punish House, Senate Leadership”

Moderatus says:

March 21, 2022 at 12:50 pm

Prediction: neither McKean nor Lundeen will lose, and this will be remembered as more rabble rousing head games egged on by the left.

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1. unnamed says:
  
  March 21, 2022 at 12:58 pm
  
  Hey nutlid. If by "egged on" you mean "the left" are watching from the sidelines saying "look at this shitshow", then you're right. We did egg it on.
  
  Also, with your track record, maybe don't make predictions. You are almost always wrong. And you have really been on a losing streak with them lately.
  
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2. Genghis says:
  
  March 21, 2022 at 1:27 pm
  
  And so was the cold kiss of death visited upon Hugh McKean and Paul Lundeen.
  
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  1. Diogenesdemar says:
    
    March 21, 2022 at 1:47 pm
    
    Aw well, it won't be all that long then before Fluffy starts touting Hein and Wilson here, too . . .
    
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3. Lauren Boebert is a Worthless POS says:
  
  March 21, 2022 at 1:55 pm
  
  And we have your word on it just as you assured us that Scott Gessler would be the GOP nominee for governor in 2014, Marco Rubio would be the GOP candidate for president until he dropped out at which point Ted Cruz was going to be the GOP candidate for president in 2016, the guy with the big dog living up in Evergreen and running for the U.S. Senate in 2016 would be the GOP nominee, and of course, Cynthia Coffman would be the 2018 GOP gubernatorial nominee.
  
  "Stay the course, senator. Some day they will thank you."
  
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  1. Genghis says:
    
    March 21, 2022 at 2:26 pm
    
    the guy with the big dog living up in Evergreen and running for the U.S. Senate in 2016
    
    Is that the dumbass who said during every interview that he was "taking the bark off Michael Bennet" and had a bunch of forged signatures on his petitions? Good times!
    
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    1. NOV GOP meltdown says:
      
      March 21, 2022 at 2:32 pm
      
      I don't think he even lives in Colorado anymore. Forgot his name even.
      
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      1. kwtree says:
        
        March 21, 2022 at 3:23 pm
        
        Keyser ( and his Great Dane) are prominently featured in the “Worst Campaigns Ever” of the latest Get More Smarter podcast.
        
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        NOV GOP meltdown says:
        
        March 21, 2022 at 3:36 pm
        
        There it is. Happy to not hear anything about him anymore.
        
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        Genghis says:
        
        March 21, 2022 at 3:37 pm
        
        Jon Keyser, that's it! Man oh man, what a clown.
        
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Conserv. Head Banger says:

March 21, 2022 at 1:43 pm

Austin Hein is a "CINO" (Conservative in Name Only).

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2Jung2Die says:

March 21, 2022 at 1:46 pm

I'd be sweating a bit if I was McKean, and not just because of the assembly results. But history's pretty full of candidates losing assemblies without getting blown out, like Lundeen, then winning the primary. Many times more people vote in the primaries, unaffiliateds get to vote (at least so far), a lot of voters decide by reflexive name recognition, and Lundeen's been known for a long time.

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Old Time Dem says:

March 21, 2022 at 5:07 pm

Austin Hein is riding high today after crushing House Minority Leader Hugh McKean by a decisive 71% margin

"Margin" is the difference between two candidates. A 71% margin (in a two person race) would mean an 85.5% to 14.5% trouncing.

Since Hein received 71% of the votes, if MeKean received all of the other votes, the margin was 42%.

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1. bullshit! says:
  
  March 22, 2022 at 12:44 pm
  
  Looks like they fixed it, thank you! That's one of my bugaboos too. 🙂
  
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Meiner49er says:

March 21, 2022 at 6:34 pm

HD51 will be interesting to watch. The right-wing fringe is a little thicker up here, but so are the old boy ties. My money (and THE money) would be on McKean, but these are the same people who begged the Larimer Sheriff to deputized them so they could shoot ANTIFA last year. I wouldn't put anything past 'em.

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1. bullshit! says:
  
  March 22, 2022 at 12:44 pm
  
  I think McKean's going down. This is RMGO's specialty.
  
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  1. Lauren Boebert is a Worthless POS says:
    
    March 22, 2022 at 1:20 pm
    
    The RMGO tried to take out Colin Larson two years ago in HD 22 by running the retread, Justin “Sleepy” Everett but Larson survived.
    
    Any word on whether they have a RWNJ running again Larson?
    
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ohwilleke says:

March 22, 2022 at 6:58 pm

Eating their own all over. Do voters care?

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