July 10, 2025 12:41 PM UTC

Heidi Ganahl Poops on Barb Kirkmeyer for Governor

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican candidates have been getting creamed in Colorado for more than a decade now. There are a lot of reasons for the GOP’s persistent failure to attract interest from voters — more than we could possibly explain in one sitting — but near the top of that list would be the Colorado Republican habit of viciously attacking other Colorado Republicans at every opportunity.

We saw this play out again recently in the accusations made against State Rep. Ron Weinberg (R-Loveland) in relation to the battle for the House Minority Whip position that eventually went to Rep. Carlos “Who?” Barron (R-Ft. Lupton). We can’t attest to the accuracy of sexual harassment allegations against Weinberg, but it has been fascinating to see the ferocity of the attacks levied by the likes of Rep. “Boxwine” Brandi Bradley (R-Littleton), who had been a contender with Weinberg for the Minority Whip position.

The red-on-red action continued this week in relation to the 2026 race for Colorado Governor. Heidi Ganahl, the disastrous 2022 Republican nominee for Governor, was guest-hosting the Dan Caplis Show on KHOW radio on Wednesday when the discussion turned to 2026. Ganahl is not bullish on the prospects of Republican State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer, who is expected to take a run at the top job in Colorado (speculation that the Colorado Times-Recorder recently teased out).

Ganahl and Kirkmeyer shared a ballot in 2022 (Ganahl lost to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis by 20 points; Kirkmeyer was narrowly defeated by Democrat Yadira Caraveo in CO-08). Ganahl used some of her time guest-hosting the Caplis Show to take a dump on the Weld County Republican:

GANAHL: Colorado Times Recorder, which I don’t think of as media, they’re a Democrat propaganda site. But they researched and found that Barb Kirkmeyer had registered Kirkmeyer for governor. And I’ve heard that she’s going to jump in or she was looking at some polling. But I don t know what if she’s looking at polling that says that, ‘Wow, we have a great shot at pulling this off.’ Like, I don’t. I haven’t seen that anywhere. [Pols emphasis]

Oof. Ganahl’s opinion on the matter is heavily-influenced by her own experience as a candidate for Governor in 2022, which is not really a fair lens to approach another campaign. Ganahl was probably the single worst statewide candidate in Colorado history, though she has plenty of excuses on that front:

GANAHL: So I think Barb’s a great state senator. I think we’ve got 16 people already running. I’ve heard Bobbie Daniel from the Western Slope is going to jump in. Would love to have some more ladies in the race, but this is all going to come down to money, money, and I can’t. I wish…I hadn’t learned this lesson the hard way, but I learned that I was naive enough to think I could outwork the money, $33 million worth compared to our, you know, $4 or $5 million. But the candidates that I’ve been talking to, I asked them that question, where are you getting the money to do this? How are you going to out raise the other people to win the primary or to win general? Well, I haven’t heard any good answers to that question.

So that’s my biggest worry on the Republican side is that people are thinking that they can outwork some money. And I learned that lesson the hard way, it doesn’t work that way. You got to at least stay even with them.

Ganahl has long attributed her electoral beatdown to being outspent by Polis, though in her recollection of 2022 she always seems to increase the number that Polis allegedly spent on his campaign. Polis spent about $13 million on his re-election campaign — a lot of money but nowhere near the $33 million that Ganahl now claims.

While Ganahl isn’t wrong that Republican candidates need to raise a lot of money to be successful in what is now a solid-blue state, but the rest of her advice is typically ridiculous:

GANAHL: I’m pretty in tune with all the donors in Colorado and nationwide now and I understand their concerns that we just don’t see it. We don’t a path forward here. We’re rebuilding that. We are doing everything we can to put the infrastructure in place to make that happen. I want to be optimistic and we need good candidates running, but they’ve got to make fundraising a huge priority.

And they’ve also been quiet on the issue of election integrity, which is shocking to me because a lot of the people running for governor have been very loud and vocal about all the elections are stolen away. We don’t feel comfortable like our vote matters. And yet they’re not talking about what’s going to change to get them elected. Like what’s going to happen? What work are they doing to make sure that our vote is counted fairly and that the elections are like on the up and up? I don’t hear anybody talking about that. [Pols emphasis]

Say what, now? Republican candidates in 2026 need to be more outspoken about election integrity? Why?

The only person who you could realistically claim to have “stolen” the 2022 gubernatorial election from Heidi Ganahl is named Heidi Ganahl. You can’t argue that there were “election integrity” issues in a race you lost by 20 freaking points.

But beyond the numbers, Ganahl spent the last two months of her campaign insisting that the big issue in Colorado was that kids were dressing up as “furries” in schools — a claim for which she famously provided no evidence whatsoever. When Ganahl talked about more, um, relevant issues, she was completely unable to explain why any of her policy proposals made a lick of sense.

Nobody should be taking campaign advice from Heidi Ganahl, but the fact that she is on conservative radio kneecapping one of the GOP’s best theoretical candidates for Governor in 2026 is just another telling example of why Republicans can’t win in Colorado anymore.