September 23, 2022 12:34 PM UTC

Joe O'Dea Hammered on Abortion, Gun Control

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• by: Colorado Pols

Back in August, Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea made a catastrophic strategic error on the issue of abortion rights that was sure to be used by opponents in a slew of advertisements.

And here they come.

As we wrote in August, O’Dea’s admission that he voted for Proposition 115 in 2020 — an abortion ban that was rejected by 59% of Colorado voters — was likely the nail in his electoral coffin on an issue that has surged to the top of mind for many voters in 2022. A new television ad from a PAC called “53 Peaks” is using O’Dea’s vote on Prop. 115 to hammer him on abortion rights:

But it’s not just abortion rights where O’Dea is getting crushed. As The Colorado Sun reports:

Giffords PAC, the national organization pushing for tougher gun regulations, is running ads attacking O’Dea on gun policy…

…The 30-second Giffords PAC ad, which hits the airwaves Friday, features scenes from the mass shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, an Aurora movie theater and a Boulder King Soopers and blasts O’Dea for opposing “common-sense” firearm reforms like “closing loopholes and keeping guns away from criminals.”

O’Dea opposed the bipartisan gun regulation bill passed by Congress earlier this year and signed into law by President Joe Biden. “We’ve got plenty of laws on the books already,” he said during a Colorado Sun primary debate in June.

Here’s the Giffords ad:

O’Dea lags well behind incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in candidate fundraising, and with no real national support expected in Colorado for the Republican candidate, there’s not going to be much O’Dea can do other than sit there and get punched in the face over and over and over again.

Polling data shows that O’Dea is trailing Bennet by double digits. That might have been O’Dea’s high-water mark when all is said and done.