July 08, 2022 12:02 PM UTC

"Secession Barb" Goes Mostly Quiet After Catching The Car

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• by: Colorado Pols

It’s been over a week since the November election field was set in the June 28th primary elections, but you wouldn’t know it from the virtual absence of press coverage in what’s expected to be Colorado’s–and perhaps the nation’s–hottest congressional race for the state’s new CD-8. After a feisty three-way contest between Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, and state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, Kirkmeyer prevailed with a big reported assist from the Koch-affiliated conservative activist group Americans for Prosperity.

Although the state’s Republican establishment was split in this primary between Kirkmeyer and Kulmann, Kirkmeyer in the end was better able to cast herself as the base-pleasing conservative ideologue “who can still win in November.” But with the primary now over and Kirkmeyer facing the most evenly-divided general election district the state’s new redistricting commission in its eminent wisdom could draw, the same old problems the former pose for the latter loom large.

That’s probably why Kirkmeyer has barely been heard from in the ten days since winning the June 28th primary. Bloomberg’s Zach Cohen has one of the only stories you’ll find mentioning Kirkmeyer in the last week, and from what we can see Kirikmeyer is struggling to find her message against Democratic nominee Yadira Caraveo:

“Caraveo is part of the far left of the Democratic Party,” said Greg Brophy, a former Republican state legislator who sought the governorship in 2014. “And I think what we’re seeing nationwide in the polling is that the average Hispanic voter is not particularly interested in the uber-left.”

In today’s Republican Party, the surrogate dispatched to talk about “the average Hispanic voter” is a white dude named Greg Brophy. That should be the first clue that something’s wrong with this picture.

Kirkmeyer spent the part of the day before the primary at a diner in Brighton, where supporters peppered her with questions about gun control, the US-Mexico border, and eliminating the US Department of Education as they snacked on pancakes and breakfast burritos.

They also repeatedly brought up the economy, with Kirkmeyer responding that boosting production in the district’s oil and gas industry — as well as its agriculture — would help avoid recession and reduce inflation.

In the interview, Kirkmeyer said voters in the district are “God-fearing, tax-hating, gun-loving people” and that the campaign should “stick to those issues.” [Pols emphasis]

So the Republican nominee’s plan for victory in Colorado’s most closely-divided district is to run the same campaign Kirkmeyer ran in deep-red Weld County! This is one of the reasons Democrats were most concerned about Kulmann winning the primary, since Kulmann would have been better able to pivot to the “post-partisan” self-triangulating message that some swing-state Republicans are trying this year. Kirkmeyer simply lacks the imagination to run as anything other than a conservative browbeater, and it’s not a good fit in this–or any–swing district.

In one of the only other stories mentioning Kirkmeyer in the last week, from the right-wing Complete Colorado’s unreliable narrator Sherrie Peif, Kirkmeyer applies the same hubris to the issue of abortion:

[Kirkmeyer] said Caraveo’s comments that “no way in hell is there going to be a federal ban on abortion,” are shortsighted.

“I don’t think she knows her district,” Kirkmeyer said. [Pols emphasis] “To think this district is similar in demographics as the rest of the state, is wrong. It’s not. It is about 38 percent Hispanic and about 42-43 percent Catholic. How goes the state is not how goes CD-8.”

There are some big, gaping problems with this rationale: the idea that Caraveo can appeal only to Hispanic voters, or that Catholic voters are monolithic on the issue of abortion rights. But most of all, Kirkmeyer has absolutely no business accusing anyone of “not knowing her district” after she led the failed movement by Weld County along with a few other smaller rural counties to secede from the state of Colorado in 2013. Longtime readers will remember that Weld County voted against the proposal even though Weld was the only significant population center to consider the question.

With the polling today showing Republicans losing badly in both the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, CD-8 could become the fallback opportunity for Colorado Republicans as their always high hopes meet reality. Republicans didn’t have the ideal candidate for this uniquely competitive district on the ballot. Given the fundamental contradiction between what Republicans offer and what voters in this district need, such a candidate may well not exist.

But one thing’s for sure, and will become increasingly evident: it’s not Barb Kirkmeyer.