DENVER \u2013 A field of three Republicans are jostling for the GOP nomination in Colorado, with former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, indicted on election fraud charges, leading the GOP fundraising but well behind Democrat incumbent Jena Griswold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, Griswold became the first Democrat in 60 years to hold the secretary of state position in Colorado. This year, she\u2019s running unopposed in the primaries and had raked in record fundraising of more than $2.5 million as of May 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leading the Republican fund-raising with $161,000, Peters has gained traction with supporters of the Big Lie, but the state GOP refused to endorse her and asked her to suspend her campaign. Peters has also been barred by a judge from overseeing the 2022 elections in Mesa County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peters has been indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts based on allegations of tampering with election equipment and official misconduct, all related to the ongoing investigation examining her role in taking hard drives from a voting machine and sharing them as well as passwords with election conspiracy theorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some predict that, despite the indictment, her name will be on the ballot in the Nov. 8 general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI imagine given the complexity of the investigation . . . it\u2019s pretty unlikely that a trial would occur before the November election,\u201d said Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein. He noted that if convicted on all charges, Peters could face more than 20 years in state prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A potential dark horse in the Republican primaries is moderate Pam Anderson, a former Jefferson County and municipal clerk who rejects Trump-camp rhetoric about the 2020 election. In Georgia\u2019s contested race that year, Anderson participated in certifying the recount that confirmed the state for Democrat then-candidate Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anderson has been endorsed by Griswold\u2019s predecessor, former secretary of state Wayne Williams, who replaced Peters as a Mesa County elections official after she was barred from overseeing this year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the ring with Peters and Anderson is Mike O\u2019Donnell, an immigrant from Australia whose platform focuses on pushing the secretary of state\u2019s role to promote businesses in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He, Anderson and Griswold see Peters as an unpredictable, fringe-ideology frontrunner \u2013 and Anderson as a well-qualified alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTina and the secretary of state [Griswold] are going hammer and tongs, blasting each other in the media all the time,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cAnd then at the other end, you\u2019ve got Pam and Tina going at each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four independents also are running: Libertarian Bennett Rutledge, American Constitution Party\u2019s Amanda Campbell, Unity Party\u2019s Gary Swing and Approval Voting Party\u2019s Jeff Orrok. Most are aware that their campaigns don\u2019t stack up to the Democrat and Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking ahead to the general election, Swing said Anderson and Griswold \u201chave a realistic chance of being elected,\u201d compared with the volatility of a Peters candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf the Republicans nominate Tina Peters, I think they’re going to be slaughtered in the election. They’re going to lose by landslide. And it makes a spectacle out of the whole process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A trio of Republicans are jostling for the GOP nomination in the Colorado secretary of state primaries, readying to face the well-funded Democrat incumbent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcprojects.medill.northwestern.edu\/sosfordemocracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}