Jun.30

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Keep an Eye on Today's GOP Gubernatorial Primary in Colorado

Yesterday, we wrote up the Colorado primaries, keeping our focus on the candidates who might actually end up being elected to office. We also pointed out that if one or both of two progressive candidates for the House ultimately triumph, then Fox, et al. will try to make those people (and the Squad and the Mamdani trio) the face of the Democratic Party.

We will, of course, have a write-up of the Colorado primaries tomorrow. And we expect to have a piece on this "face of the Democratic Party" business, if time and space allow. For now, however, let's take a look at an election we only briefly mentioned yesterday, and one that could well produce a "face of the Republicans" effect detrimental to that party.

Because the Republican nominee for Colorado governor is not going to win, polling of that race has been limited. Very limited. In fact, there is just one poll, from Cygnal. The poll is almost 2 months old (May 7-8), and Cygnal is only a middling pollster, so the numbers have to be taken with a few grains of salt. However, here is how they have the GOP primary:

Again, not the most solid data point in the world. That said, with Marx leading his nearest competitor by 29 points, it's not crazy to think he could win this thing.

And now, with that possibility in mind, let's play a few rounds of the old party game "Two truths and a lie." We'll give you four sets of statements about Marx; you have to figure out which one is the lie:

1. Marx brags he's the "world's fastest weapon disarmer," which means he can knock a gun out of someone's hand.
2. Marx claims to be a black belt in Cajun Karate, which was developed by his father... Karl.
3. Marx also says he has a black belt in "Pain."

1. Marx says his abusive stepfather made him kill another man when he (Marx) was 7 years old.
2. Marx refuses to answer questions about how many people he's killed as an adult.
3. Marx was nearly shot in cold blood, by one of his employees.

1. Marx's humanitarian work includes distributing stuffed animals that play a Bible verse when their paw is squeezed.
2. Marx's campaign announcement video features he and his wife, in black-tie attire, beating the daylights out of two people in an elevator.
3. Marx is about to publish an autobiography, with foreword by Stephen Miller.

1. Marx says he has rescued more than 45,000 women and children from abusive households
2. Marx boasts that he, as a civilian, called in an airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters.
3. Marx says he has exorcised at least six demons from other people.

Make your picks—which one is the lie, in each case?

Ok, now the answers. In each case, #3 is the lie. However, all of the #3s are slightly modified versions of things Marx has actually done or claims to have done. To wit, he claims he has a black belt in "Weapons"; he was nearly shot in cold blood by his brother-in-law; he has already published an autobiography, with foreword by Charlie Kirk; and he actually claims he's exorcised over 100 demons. For the "truths," they are truths in the sense that Marx really has said/claimed those things. Most of those "truths" do not actually stand up to scrutiny.

The point here is that Marx is pretty wacky. And this doesn't even cover the fact that he has a long history of apparently corrupt behavior on his ledger. For example, his organization has raised, and spent, millions, and yet there's little paper trail speaking to where the money went, and the organization has only Marx, his wife and his son as employees. Similarly, his campaign donations, which total nearly $3 million, and which he burns through as quickly as they come in, appear to be screwy, with lots of cases of donations coming from the same person and same address, but in many different (sometimes dozens of different) cities.

As we will write in the piece planned for tomorrow, we are somewhat doubtful that a couple of lefty candidates in one state can substantially derail candidates hundreds or thousands of miles away, Fox propaganda notwithstanding. However, it is absolutely the case that a screwy candidate at the top of a party's ticket can cause people to stay home, and can hurt the party down the line. Republican political operative Dick Wadhams, among others, agrees with us, writing that if Marx is nominated, he "will drag down every Republican candidate in every competitive statewide, state legislative and congressional race." Actually, Badham feels the same about Scott Bottoms, a wild-eyed conspiracist who insists that pedophile rings are operating everywhere in Colorado, and have total control of the state government.

So, even if the Republican candidate for governor has little chance of winning in November, that primary is still worth watching. (Z)