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It’s not hard to pick winners and losers following the surprise decision by 4th Congressional District Republican insiders to choose Greg Lopez as the party nominee, and therefore runaway favorite, in the June 25 special election to replace Ken Buck in Congress.
We can obviously start with Lopez — the climate-change denier, the 2020-election denier, the improper-influence-over-a-federal-agency denier — who looks like a clear winner. But Lopez, better known as a two-time loser as GOP candidate for governor and also a right-wing loon, didn’t win all that much.
Running as merely a placeholder for whoever prevails in the still-wide-open GOP primary to succeed Buck, Lopez will remain in office only until next January and will likely be remembered, if at all, as a rarely cited footnote in Colorado congressional history.
But where matters gets confusing is that the primary will be held on the same June 25 date, and on the same ballot, as the special election, which promises to puzzle more than a few voters and which, unsurprisingly, caused Lauren Boebert to announce that she was the victim of a conspiracy led by Buck and his so-called “uniparty” friends.
And yet.
Now-former Rep. Ken Buck, U-Windsor, who denies up and down he had any ulterior motives in deciding to leave his job in Congress months before his term would have ended, looks like a loser here.
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So does former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, who is running to succeed Buck and who finished second to Lopez in the special election voting.
And more to the point, so does anyone — including what’s left of the mainstream GOP leadership in Colorado — who worries that Boebert, by switching districts, will ensure that she remains in Congress.
So, yes, Boebert is the real winner. She’s the one who asked the GOP insiders to pick a placeholder instead of one of the seven candidates who are also running in the primary. Of course, she was the one primary candidate who couldn’t easily run in the special election because winning the 4th CD special election would have forced her to resign her current job representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
For her, it would have been a matter of losing by winning. But if Sonnenberg, seen by many to be her principal competition in the primary race, was on the ballot for both the special election and the primary, that would probably have given him a significant boost.
So, yes, at the risk of repeating myself, Lopez’s close victory over Sonnenberg is a Boebert victory.
And Buck?
Buck may deny everything, but in leaving early, it certainly looked as if he was intent on sabotaging both his former GOP colleagues in the dysfunctional House of Representatives and his wannabe successor, the disconcerting Boebert.
In the months before leaving office, Buck, whose conservative credentials are pretty much unassailable, was assailing his colleagues for their support of the Big Lie, for their evidence-free attempt to impeach Joe Biden, for calling those convicted for the January 6 assault on Congress “hostages” and “patriots.”
He called this year in Congress the most toxic in maybe 50 years.
By leaving early, he left the GOP leadership with only a two-vote margin of error when attempting to pass any legislation, knowing full well that Speaker-for-now Mike Johnson would have trouble passing legislation if Republicans had a two-to-one margin of error.
Some in Congress seemed to take notice of Buck’s heresy. The GOP’s right-wing Freedom Caucus, of which Buck had been an original member, kicked him out in his final days on the Hill. You have to love the explanation. In justifying the move, caucus leaders noted that Buck had attendance issues, which may or may not, I guess, go on his permanent record.
Boebert took notice, too. I’m guessing she probably saw it on Newsmax. In any case, she called Buck’s decision “a swampy backroom deal to rig an election.”
Buck called the accusation “ridiculous,” which, of course, it is. No one was trying to rig an election. But if Buck, who has said repeatedly he won’t endorse anyone in the race, hoped to stop Boebert, he wouldn’t be alone. Cory Gardner, who once represented the heavily Republican 4th CD before moving on to the Senate, has endorsed Sonnenberg. So have former Sens. Wayne Allard and Hank Brown, who both also represented the 4th CD before moving on to the Senate.
On the other hand, Boebert has been endorsed by, of course, Donald Trump. And also Mike Johnson.
Which hand would you prefer to play?
But if putting Lopez in Congress — Democrats will choose their nominee next week, but it is a district that Buck won in 2022 by 23 points — is a win for Boebert, you can’t say it’s a win for Colorado.
It’s closer, much closer, to an embarrassment.
You may recall Lopez’s run-ins with the law, which were well publicized during his campaigns. He had a long-ago domestic violence charge for fighting with his then-6-months-pregnant wife. Both pleaded guilty to harassment. He was once charged with a DUI. He settled a civil case — paying a $15,000 fine — filed by federal prosecutors who charged that after leaving his job at the Small Business Association, Lopez attempted to improperly influence activities there.
And it’s not just that Lopez believes the 2020 election was rigged or that humans aren’t responsible for climate change that should disqualify him. When running for governor in 2022, Lopez took a homophobic shot at Jared Polis and First Gentleman Marlon Reis, saying, “I think it’s time we had a real first lady, don’t you?”
How much more embarrassment do you need?
Well, as it turns out, I can think of at least one carpetbagging candidate who might now be a major step closer to providing an answer.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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