May 15, 2026 12:06 PM UTC

Buried Under the Weight of Ridiculous Nonsense

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• by: Colorado Pols

The year was 2014. Donald Trump was still just a former reality TV host and nobody had ever heard of the term “COVID.”

Democrat John Hickenlooper was re-elected as Governor by a narrow three-point margin over Bob Beauprez , but Republicans won every other statewide race — from a U.S. Senate seat (Cory Gardner) to contests for Attorney General (Cynthia Coffman), Secretary of State (Wayne Williams), and State Treasurer (Walker Stapleton).

And then the roof caved in on the GOP:

♦ 2016: Republicans nominate Darryl Glenn for U.S. Senate, giving incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet an easy path to re-election.

♦ 2018: Democrats sweep every statewide office. The closest race is for Attorney General, where Phil Weiser beats George Brauchler by 4 points. In CO-06, Democrat Jason Crow unseats longtime incumbent Mike Coffman in a double-digit blowout.

♦ 2020: Hickenlooper annihilates Gardner by nearly 10 points to give Democrats control of both U.S. Senate seats from Colorado.

♦ 2022: Democrats again sweep the four statewide constitutional offices, led by Gov. Jared Polis defeating Republican Heidi Ganahl by nearly 20 points. The “best” showing for Republicans is an 11-point loss to incumbent Dave Young in the race for State Treasurer.

♦ 2024: Republicans avoid losing a major statewide race for the first time in a decade…but only because there are no such races on the ballot.

That downhill trend figures to get even worse for Colorado Republicans in 2026. State Sen. Mark Baisley (R-Roxborough Park), dropped out of the race for Governor earlier this year because he couldn’t generate any interest or money from other Republicans; naturally, Colorado Republicans then decided to make Baisley their nominee for U.S. Senate. The only question left in this contest is about how big the margin of victory will be for the Democrat in November (almost assuredly Sen. John Hickenlooper).

Republicans couldn’t find anyone interested in running for Attorney General until January. Their candidate for State Treasurer, Kevin Grantham, is being outraised by a factor of seven by Democrat Jeff Bridges. Grantham looks like a powerhouse compared to the Republican nominee for Secretary of State; former Libertarian candidate James Wiley hasn’t raised a single dollar for his campaign.

And then there is the race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, which is a just about the perfect summation of what ails Colorado Republicans. On Thursday evening, State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and State Rep. Scott “Rock” Bottoms participated in another debate in which the Republican frontrunner — snake oil salesman Victor Marx — didn’t bother to show up because he’s walking away with the June Primary election. The front page of today’s Denver Post tells you everything you need to know about the GOP in 2026:

As Elliott Wenzler reports for the Post:

Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidates Barbara Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms faced off in a debate Thursday, answering questions about their allegiance to President Donald Trump, their state budget priorities and whether or not there are pedophilia rings running rampant in the state.

Both candidates are current elected members of the legislature. Throughout the debate, Bottoms, who has been a state representative for Colorado Springs since 2023, repeatedly referred to concerns about pedophilia rings but then said he had no way to back up his claims.

“The FBI is checking into all of that,” he said. “There’s no way I can prove this right now because I’m not a federal investigator … but we’ll see.”

Two of the Republican candidates for Governor spent significant time during an actual televised debate discussing completely made-up claims from Bottoms that there are three different “pedophile rings” in operation at the State Capitol. Bottoms has been hilariously discredited on this claim already, but he keeps bringing it up because his campaign is broke and his only hope for raising his profile is to barf out stupid shit as often as possible.

Bottoms is getting earned media coverage for his idiotic claims…but all press is not good press. Even if Colorado Republicans were talking about important issues such as affordability and health care access, those messages wouldn’t get through because media outlets have to spend their time debunking other invented talking points.

As 9News reports:

Law enforcement leaders are beyond skeptical of a Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Representative Scott Bottoms’ claims that a Venezuelan gang has overrun rural Colorado.

Bottoms said Colorado is under siege from a “foreign criminal army” of 45,000 to 50,000 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) operating in Colorado.

A National Counterterrorism Center analysis in January 2026 estimated TdA’s worldwide membership at 2,500 to 5,000 members.

When 9NEWS asked Bottoms for evidence of his claim, Bottoms said the information came “from direct conversations with ICE officials about this exact problem in our state.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Denver said its leadership has not had contact with Bottoms.

As Kyle Clark explains, 9News couldn’t find a single sheriff in Colorado — Democrat or Republican — who could corroborate Bottoms’ idiocy:

“Absolutely not,” said Prowers County Sheriff Sam Zordel, a Republican.

“I don’t know where Scott is getting his information, but it’s certainly not from me,” said Kit Carson County Sheriff Travis Belden, a Republican. “And I would be amazed if he’s heard that directly from any other sheriff.”

“This is absurd,” said Ouray County Sheriff Justin Perry, who is registered Unaffiliated. “Ouray County has no presence of Venezuelan cartel that I am aware of, and I certainly am not deputizing a group of special forces citizens for any cartel-related operations.”

Colorado Republicans are stuck in what seems to be an endless cycle of electoral defeat because the base keeps rewarding fraudsters like Bottoms and Marx, both of whom made the Primary ballot by getting strong support at the state GOP assembly.

Kirkmeyer has a troublesome record as an elected official, but she has at least tried to govern. In four years as a state lawmaker, Bottoms has passed ONE BILL — a silly measure to create a new kind of license plate that is the local equivalent of a Member of Congress renaming a post office. Marx has no government experience at all and bluffs his way through interviews with right-wing radio stations. The State Republican Party isn’t any help, either; they still don’t even have a leader after Brita Horn walked away from the infighting in April.

Colorado Republicans are never going to get out of their electoral morass until they stop dancing with the loons who brought them here. But instead of learning a lesson from goofball candidates like Heidi Ganahl, the GOP keeps doubling down on invented tales of pedophile rings and 50,000 marauding Venezuelan gangsters.

Maybe they’ll figure it out in 2028. We wouldn’t bet on it.