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There is a real possibility that Joe O’Dea will be the big surprise winner in Colorado on November 8th.
The parallel to the Colorado race may be the 2021 New Jersey state Senate race, in which trucker Ed Durr Jr. spent $2,300 to defeat former state Senate President Stephen Sweeney.
Sweeney, a Democrat, had won re-election four years earlier with 59 percent of the vote after a grueling campaign in which the two parties spent a combined $19 million.
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Durr was an independent truck driver who was upset that New Jersey would not issue him a concealed carry permit (even though he met all the requirements).
With no disrespect to Durr, it was clear that he didn’t win because of the muscle of his campaign. In fact, it’s likely that most of the people who voted for him weren’t exactly sure who he was. They were sure who the president of the New Jersey Senate was and they were sure they wanted to oust him. It became a “he’s not that guy” campaign.
FILE – Joe O’Dea, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Michael Bennet, speaks during a primary election night party, late June 28, 2022, in Denver.
(AP)
To be clear: O’Dea is a much more substantial number than Durr in 2021. O’Dea is the CEO of a construction company that employs more than 300 Coloradans. He won a spirited GOP primary with 54.5 percent of the vote, although some Democratic PACs spent money trying to nominate his opponent, who they thought would be easier to beat in the general.
On primary election night, O’Dea said he would represent Colorado and the country, not a political party. “The Colorado Senate race is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and Michael Bennet’s rubber stamp,” he said. “I will work with reasonable people on both sides. No political party will control me.” Importantly, O’Dea defined himself as a construction CEO, not a politician or supporter.
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O’Dea is helped by the clear contrast with Bennet. For starters, O’Dea is a fourth-generation Coloradoan, while Bennet moved to Colorado in 1997 after being born in India and growing up in Washington, DC.
To demonstrate how out of touch Bennet is with Colorado, he obtained a one-day fishing license to film a commercial portraying him as an outdoorsman. Few Coloradans, an extraordinarily outdoors-centric town, would think that a one-day fishing license demonstrates a serious commitment to fishing, the outdoors, or conservation. It just made Bennet look like a fake Oriental pretending to be a Coloradan.
O’Dea’s challenge is that Joe Biden won Colorado in 2020 with 55 percent to Donald Trump’s 41 percent (the rest went to third-party candidates). Colorado was 9.1 percent more Democratic than the nation as a whole in 2020.
O’Dea is straightforward about his goals. He says he’s running in the Senate to reduce inflation, reduce unnecessary spending and debt, to get America back on track with energy independence, and to keep America safe by supporting police at home and supporting to a strong army and “through peace”. force” abroad.
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He highlights his background: the adopted son of a police officer who left school early to start a successful construction company with his wife. This company, Concrete Express, started from his basement and now employs more than 300 employees. (By the way, in hard times, he has paid these employees with his own personal credit.)
FILE – Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, speaks during a press conference on the child tax credit at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S., Thursday, July 15, 2021.
(Al Drago/Bloomberg)
O’Dea’s story is the classic success story of the American dream. As CEO of that company, O’Dea has built billions of civil construction projects in Colorado that have improved the lives of people across the state. O’Dea represents hard work and blue-collar Coloradans.
By contrast, Senator Bennet is the son of a diplomat. He was raised in Chevy Chase, Maryland, went to an elite private school in Washington, DC (St. Albans School), and then attended Yale Law School. Bennet represents the Eastern elitists who move to Colorado to play cowboy.
However, O’Dea’s biggest advantage is Bennet’s voting record. Senator Bennet has voted with President Biden and national Democrats 98 percent of the time.
Joe O’Dea speaks at campaign event in Denver
(Courtesy Sage Naumann for the Joe O’Dea Campaign)
This means that Bennet has rampant inflation and the growing recession. He owns the rise in crime, even in Denver and Boulder, which has been spiked by fentanyl deaths and the open southern border. Bennett has a continuing anger at schools that indoctrinate children with strange values and ideas. The list goes on.
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There’s a real chance that most Coloradans will say “this just doesn’t work.” At this point, you’ll have Senator O’Dea from Colorado in January.
As Durr has shown, a sense of “it’s not this” can lead to great discomfort.
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