Although Republicans won control of the Colorado state senate during the midterms, pockets of resistance cost them both seats they’d picked up during the 2013 recall efforts. Some of the resistance was in a senate district–Colorado Springs–and some of it was in the state Republican party headquarters.
The New York Times reports that state senator Bernie Herpin (R-Colo. Springs) was defeated by Michael Merrifield (D) and senator George Rivera (R-Pueblo) was defeated by Leroy Garcia (D).
Herpin says the loss was due to the fact that guns were simply “not much of an issue” in his district this time around. But this misses the larger point, which is that Republicans have to make guns an issue, especially in a race where Herpin’s opponent had ties to Michael Bloomberg.
Merrifield “had been a Colorado coordinator for [Bloomberg’s] Mayors Against Illegal Guns.”
The situation in Pueblo was different. There, the state Republican Party ostracized and ultimately abandoned Rivera.
Breitbart News spoke to recall spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns on November 12. She says: “The state Republican Party party chair lived up to his threat to not fund operations in Pueblo because of the 2013 recall elections, which state party did not support.” And although the Pueblo County Republican Party chair was able to shame the state party into sending a meager amount of funding late in the cycle, Kerns said it was considered “too little, too late.”
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