Lauren Boebert 2.0 is even more MAGA and extreme than the original
Khaki sleeves rolled up and safety goggles adjusted, Ron Hanks stares into the sight of a high-powered rifle before pulling the trigger on Coloradoās arid plains ā ostensibly blowing up an office copier disguised as a voting machine in a video political campaign ad.
The attention-grabbing clip vaulted Hanks into headlines during his unsuccessful Senate campaign two years ago; now heās followed it up with equally hard-nosed, gun-themed and solemn campaign ads ā as the combat veteran vies to fill the seat being vacated by MAGA firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert.
āIām the only conservative in this race,ā former Republican state representative Hanks tells The Independent. āAnd Iām the only conservative with a proven legislative record ā¦ look at my time in the state house, when I fought for the Second Amendment and I fought for election integrity and I fought for the unborn.ā
This is the candidate endorsed by the central committee of the state GOP in the race to replace Boebert in a district she nearly lost to a Democrat two years ago ā and a district sheās fled for a better shot at a seat across the state.
The brash congresswomanās antics and increasingly outrageous scandals were largely blamed for her waning support among both CD3 Republican and unaffiliated constituents. Instead of endorsing a less controversial candidate upon her departure, however, the Colorado GOP has thrown its weight behind a veritable Boebert 2.0; Hanks is a self-described āpro-Trump warrior,ā election denier and proud attendee of the Jan. 6 rally in DC. (He says, however, that he did not enter the Capitol.)
Boebert may have upped sticks to seek greener pastures eastward, but the brouhaha sheās left behind is following her same fractious brand of rhetoric, drama and polarization ā¦ and thatās just within her own party.
Despite the GOP endorsement of Hanks, the more staid establishment candidate ā a Grand Junction attorney named Jeff Hurd with a slew of Republican old-guard endorsements ā is polling far ahead. Both menās campaigns are gleefully attacking each other as the clock counts down to next weekās primary.
And not to be outdone, the Democrats are accused of meddling after a series of PAC-funded reverseāpsychology ads declared Hanks too conservative ā in an attempt to appeal to the ultra-right base, secure Hanks the nomination and ultimately give Frisch a better shot in November. The strategy is presumably banking on the fact that the same voters who turned against Boebert will also find Hanks to be a distasteful choice.
Coloradoās third congressional district, thrown headlong into the national spotlight four years ago when political neophyte Boebert unseated five-term Republican Scott Tipton in the primary, has been on a political rollercoaster ride ever since. Boebert made constant headlines ā heckling the president at the State of the Union; getting groped in a theater; divorcing and then fighting with her ex-husband in public ā before capping the drama with a surprise constituency switch.
Days after the December announcement that Boebert would now be running in CD4, Hanks threw his hat in the ring for her Western Slope seat. A combat veteran with 32 years of service, he doubles down on the same far-right views as Boebert but delivers them with expressionless solemnity, not finger-pointing shouts. Like her, he plays up his common-man roots.
āWhen I wasnāt working for the Air Force, I fracked in North Dakota, and I hammered iron and drove trucks with blue-collar America,ā he told constituents one week before the primary in a Tuesday night zoom town hall.
āIām telling you, we can fix all of the ills on the backs of blue-collar America: the pipefitters, the welders, the cement men ā¦ you know, these are the people that are going to rebuild this country.ā
Hanks ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California in 2010 before the failed Colorado Senate campaign, but served as a state representative in Coloradoās House for District 60, encompassing his home in Fremont County ā which is not in CD3.
He, like Boebert, is carpet-bagging.
Hanks not living in the district didnāt seem to matter to voters The Independent spoke with, particularly those who were sad to see Boebert go.
āI donāt think the Republicans here care one way or the other, as long as we get the representation,ā Roxie Geigle, wearing a red-white-and-blue cowboy hat and matching boot-shaped earrings, tells The Independent of Hanksā district switch.
Hanks says that, while he may not hail originally from CD3, he won the district during his Senate attempt ā and was quickly fielding phone calls asking him to run when Boebert bowed out.
Ten days before the primary, his supporter Geigle is sitting in the Grand Junction offices of the Mesa County Republicans, a space kitted out with Charlie Kirk pamphlets, Trump mugshot mugs for sale and āGod, guns and Trumpā paraphernalia.
āA lot of people want Lauren Boebert back, but weāve got to move on, and so weāre trying to find the best candidate to fill that position,ā she says. āI do worry about somebody replacing her enthusiasm in Congress ā¦ that they wonāt match it. And the closest one I found is Ron.ā
Geigle, a 72-year-old retiree, volunteers with the party and is a Republican district captain but is speaking in her personal capacity as a voter. This is the first year the state GOP committee has broken with precedent and actually endorsed candidates, further stoking tensions and resentments within the party; it also put out a heavily Trumpāleaning candidate questionnaire.
Party chairman Dave Williams, who is himself running for the congressional seat in yet another Colorado district, and another officer recused themselves from the endorsement choice, according to the statement ā leaving the decision to just three other officials, it seems. Williams did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
āItās not a surprise to see a split in the party between old-guard conservatives and more MAGA types; weāve seen that in a lot of places and a lot of states,ā Seth Masket, director of the University of Denverās Center on American Politics, tells The Independent. āBut Wiliams is really sort of ramping up his power as state party chair to try and influence races ā¦ thatās really unusual.ā
Warring factions within the GOP ā both in official ranks and on the ground ā have made people unwilling to talk about politics even within their own circles, say Geigle and office manager Karen Kulp.
āWe have families that are split; we have people that have been friends for years [disagreeing] .. all kinds of things happening,ā Kulp tells The Independent. āItās been going on over here for a long time. You have your āNever-Trumpers, and then you have us.ā
Hanks, according to the GOP committeeās endorsement last month, āwill secure the border, cut out-of-control taxes and spending, protect the unborn, defend the Second Amendment, and enthusiastically support our 2024 Republican Presidential nominee, President Donald J. Trump.ā
There are plenty of Republicans who donāt embrace the Hanks style of conservativism, however ā and the support behind Hurd would indicate that their numbers are significant. He has outpaced Hanks in both fundraising and the polls.
āA lot of the older generation is supporting kind of your Ron Hanks and America First movement, whereas young people are more, āLetās take a step back, letās re-evaluate,ā says Mesa County Republican Austin DeWitt, 23, who supported Boebert in two elections but felt she spent too much time on national issues, not local.
āRight now, I know a lot of young Republicans like myself ā¦ theyāre saying the same exact thing: Ron Hanks just doesnāt really have a young personās interest, and itās more grassroots, America First, more going along the lines with the state party.
āMy priorities are, obviously, letās put the West Slope first.ā
He said he was supporting Hurd, whoās āput a plan forthā and is ānot really engaging in any of the mudslinging.ā
Heavyweights like former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a former Colorado secretary of state and state treasurer, and two of Boebertās predecessors have also publicly given support to Hurd, labelled āan empty suitā by Hanks.
āWe know whoās running him: Itās the old retread establishment Republicans that are no longer in office that are looking for influence,ā Hanks tells The Independent.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, in a scathing editorial last month, took aim at the state GOP shenanigans.
āThis is ludicrous,ā the paper wrote. āThe state party shouldnāt be endorsing at all ā allowing its party members to draw their own conclusions about who is best qualified. Instead, the party is endorsing candidates whose views most closely align with the MAGA-loving state party chairman ā¦ Ever since Lauren Boebert announced she wouldnāt run to represent the 3rd CD for a third time, weāve looked forward to a potential matchup between Adam Frisch and Jeff Hurd on the prospect that voters would have a choice between two qualified moderates.
āThe state GOP would rather see a matchup between Hanks and a Democrat,ā it wrote. āIt should be careful what it wishes for.ā
The strategy, it warned, could see the seat flip to Democrat for the first time since 2011 ā and that matchup does seem to be exactly what the Left wants ā¦ if the TV ads theyāre funding are anything to go by. National Republican leaders, at least, are up in arms about them.
Accusing Frisch of āgutter politics,ā the National Republican Congressional Committee has complained that Frisch was spending $115,000 in media markets ad that Rocky Mountain Values, āa group bankrolled by the same donors as House Democratsā nonprofit, has already spent $636,000 meddling in the primary.ā
One RMV-funded ad, for example, highlights how Hanks wants to crack down on immigration and laments: āRon Hanks and Donald Trump are just too conservativeā before finishing with a stark: āToo conservative for Colorado.ā
āWhen you have a Democrat start meddling in Republican elections and start paying all this money into a primary to support a certain candidate, that tells me right there that they believe he is the weaker candidate ā in November, he could lose,ā voter DeWitt tells The Independent.
Rocky Mountain Values did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Hanks, meanwhile, has been the target of attack ads funded by fellow Republicans, according to him. The advertisements call him āa bullseye for liberalsā and a āmisfire for Colorado,ā accusing āDemocratic mega donorsā of āpropping up his campaign.ā
One week before the primary, Hanks huffed on Facebook about Speaker Mike Johnson and the CLF PAC ads āto foolishly attack my 2A and pro-Trump creds.ā
āI was AT Jan 6th,ā he added, also highlighting his pro-Second Amendment legislative efforts in the Colorado House.
In a zoom town hall later that night, Hanks directly addressed the divisions within the GOP and the attack ads, visibly annoyed.
āIf it sounds like a raw nerve, itās because you thought you had some allies somewhere in your own damned party,ā he said. āAnd we donāt; we are largely here alone.ā
Just days before the election, Hanks tells The Independent that he feels there is a fight afoot āfor the heart and soul of the party,ā not just in Colorado but nationally.
āThis is now a fracture in the Republican Party between grassroots, who want limited government, and the establishment, who want a seat at the Democratsā table,ā he says. āAnd so this is the election to break this wide open. And Trump is doing that by being in the race.ā