Political Sheet

Colorado Primaries Are Drowning in Unlimited Money

1 hour ago
by Scott K. James
4 min read
Colorado campaign mailers and a ballot box layered over a state Capitol backdrop
Nothing says grassroots like a money cannon pointed at your mailbox.
Written by Scott K. James

Unlimited-money groups spent about $20 million in May and June trying to shape Colorado’s June 30 primaries. Follow the money, then distrust the halo.

Colorado Politics reports that groups allowed to raise unlimited money have spent about $20 million in May and June trying to influence Colorado voters ahead of the June 30 primaries. By law, these groups cannot coordinate with the candidates they support. By common sense, everyone is invited to look at that sentence and laugh until the mailers stop coming.

The piece lays out a primary season drowning in money from independent expenditure committees, political nonprofits, labor groups, business interests, sports-betting money, charter-school advocates, and assorted PACs with names that sound like they were assembled in a lab by people allergic to sunlight. The ads support candidates. The ads attack opponents. The fingerprints are often scrubbed clean enough to satisfy the lawyers, which is apparently the new definition of civic virtue.

The Bullet Point Brief

  • Unlimited-money groups have spent about $20 million in May and June to shape Colorado’s June 30 primaries. But don’t worry, they cannot legally coordinate with candidates, so democracy is totally safe inside this flaming clown van.
  • The biggest money is in the Democratic governor’s race. Rocky Mountain Way has spent $8.9 million supporting U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as its biggest funder at $4.61 million. Fighting for Colorado, backing Attorney General Phil Weiser, has raised just under $1.3 million, with its largest contribution coming from James Monroe III at $100,000.
  • Legislative primaries are getting the deluxe donor-class treatment too. Spending on contested state House and Senate primaries is nearing $7 million, with five contested Senate primaries and 19 in the House. Apparently your neighborhood primary now requires the financial footprint of a small space program.
  • House District 6 is the big-ticket cage match, with more than $924,000 spent in the race between Rep. Sean Camacho and Iris Halpern. Denver Progressives United is spending heavily for Camacho, funded by Fair Economy for Coloradans, which is not required to disclose its funders. Colorado Labor Action is backing Halpern, funded by the Colorado Education Association and labor unions, while also spending deep into the red. Fiscal discipline, but make it campaign season.
  • One Main Street Colorado is playing both sides of the field, funding Democratic-aligned groups while also being the largest funder of Coloradans for Progress, which put $180,000 into the Colorado Conservative Leadership Fund. Sports-betting money is also in the mix through groups connected to DraftKings, FanDuel and others. Nothing says grassroots Colorado like casino-adjacent money whispering into your ballot box.

My Bottom Line

Colorado voters are being told this is democracy. Cute. What it looks like is Colorado’s primary system being treated like a damn vending machine by unlimited-money outfits with legally laundered fingerprints. Insert millions. Select candidate. Dispense ominous narrator voice.

The legal fiction is that these groups do not coordinate with candidates. Fine. Maybe they are not all sitting in the same conference room sharing stale pastries and attack-ad scripts. But the political class built an entire shadow campaign industry where donors, consultants, message shops, PAC lawyers and attack-ad factories all know the dance steps. The candidate benefits, shrugs like an innocent choir kid, and says the magic words: independent expenditure.

Meanwhile, normal voters get carpet-bombed with glossy mailers, terrifying black-and-white commercials, and PAC names that sound like church committees but operate like artillery crews. Fairness this. Progress that. Conservative leadership over here. Affordability over there. Half of them sound like they should be selling insurance at the county fair. Instead, they are helping turn primaries into donor-class knife fights staged in your living room.

So yes, follow the money. Distrust every angelic PAC name. Ask who benefits. Ask who pays. And please stop pretending the loudest commercial is democracy. Most of the time, it is just a rich person yelling through a megaphone while a consultant goblin cashes the check.

Source: Colorado Politics

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