April 29, 2024 12:07 PM UTC

"RiNO Jeff" Hurd Blunders Badly On The Biggest Question There Is

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last Friday, the Denver Post’s John Aguilar profiled the upcoming CO-03 Republican primary, a race that has changed dramatically since the departure of incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert to run on the other side of the state for re-election after personal and professional scandal put her re-election chances–or even winning the GOP primary against an unknown placeholder candidate Jeff “You’ve Never” Hurd–in jeopardy. Since Boebert’s carpetbagging district switch, two-time Democratic candidate Adam Frisch, who came within 546 voters of taking Boebert out in 2022 and continues to rake in massive amounts of cash even after Boebert bailed from the race, has seized the momentum as he awaits the no-name winner of the June 25th primary.

Boebert’s departure from the CO-03 primary left Hurd in the position of nominal frontrunner for the Republican nomination, but also prompted the entry of other candidates into the race–most notably former state Rep. “Raging” Ron Hanks, who has campaigned alongside Colorado GOP chairman Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams and unapologetically champions the “Big Lie” that Donald Trump should still be President. As the party’s “election integrity” officer, Hanks persuaded a small number of county Republican party chairs to refuse to certify the results of last year’s election. So far, Hanks has had difficulty organizing an effective campaign to match his hard-line rhetoric, but that may change if Hanks picks up the state party’s formal endorsement under controversial new rules allowing them to do so.

In the meantime, as Aguilar reports, Hurd is doing himself no favors trying to appeal to GOP primary voters in this rapidly approaching election:

[Hurd] lists the flow of immigrants across the southern U.S. border in recent years as a “massive political failure” at the top of the issues page of his campaign website. Energy extraction, important in the 27-county 3rd District, is also a priority for Hurd. Those two issues form a nexus between Hurd and former President Donald Trump, who will be the Republican presidential nominee at the top of November’s ballot.

“His top two issues are my top two issues — securing the border and energy independence,” Hurd said.

“Secure the border” and “drill baby drill” are two of the most predictable taglines in Republican politics, especially in an energy-producing region like the Western Slope. These bromides would only be a liability, at least in the primary, if Hurd didn’t recite them. But then, Jeff “You’ve Never” Hurd made a cardinal error, one that for the purposes of the upcoming primary overshadows any stand Hurd has on any particular issue.

Jeff Hurd just gave himself a big Trump problem.

Beyond that, Hurd is tight-lipped about the former president, declining to say even whether he voted for him in the last two elections — “I’m not focused on 2016 and 2020,” he said — or whether he will vote for Trump this fall.

“I don’t talk about who I vote for,” Hurd said. [Pols emphasis]

Folks, no matter which side you’re on, that answer is totally unacceptable in an election cycle defined by Donald Trump’s improbable return to prominence, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee to become President again. Even CO-08 GOP candidate Gabe Evans, running in a far more competitive district, publicly swore fealty to Donald Trump in order to deny his primary opponents the wedge. Given the way the state party has ripped into insufficiently MAGA-loyal candidates like Jeff Crank in CO-05, we’re legitimately surprised that Hurd has left himself vulnerable to the same friendly fire.

It’s the best chance Ron Hanks is going to get to make the case that he is the candidate CO-03 GOP primary voters want. And it’s a story Jeff Hurd had better hope the famously media self-aware Donald Trump…somehow misses.