June 01, 2016 02:06 PM UTC

Scott Gessler Collecting "Soft" Money for Democrat Dave Young

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• by: Colorado Pols

He may not longer be an elected official, but you can’t get rid of Scott Gessler that easily!

Gessler is a former Republican Secretary of State who has been quite the busy bee thus far in the 2016 election cycle. Republican Senate candidate Ryan Frazier hired Gessler last month after the current Secretary of State, Wayne Williams, originally ruled that Frazier was ineligible to appear on the June 28th Primary ballot because of problems with signatures on his petitions (Frazier’s challenge was successful, and he will appear on the June ballot after all). Now Gessler’s name is showing up in a campaign finance filing related to a Democrat running for re-election in Adams County.

Dave Young is the current District Attorney in the Adams County area, though perhaps not for long; Young is facing a tough Primary battle with attorney Caryn Datz, who pulled off one of the early surprises of the election season by defeating Young at the JD-17 Democratic Assembly. Young recovered enough from that surprise loss in order to petition his way onto the June 28th Primary ballot, and you’ll never guess who is now the registered agent for a new Independent Expenditure Committee supporting Young’s re-election efforts? (okay, you can probably guess that it’s Gessler)

As we wrote back in March following Datz’s surprise assembly victory, Young has never been particularly popular among Democrats even though he carries the ‘D’ after his name. That may help explain why a former Republican Secretary of State is now in charge of collecting “soft money” contributions in an effort to help Young stave off defeat: