A House-GOP aligned super PAC is fighting back.
Colorado Democrats are throwing more than $500,000 into a GOP primary to boost a far-right Republican.
Rocky Mountain Values, a Democratic PAC, and congressional candidate Adam Frisch have spent $400,000 highlighting Ron Hanks, a primary candidate who attended the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and claims former president Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Democrats have also bought more than $100,000 in TV ads attacking the GOP primary’s frontrunner, Jeff Hurd, presuming Hanks would be easier to beat in November.
“Adam and his liberal allies know he cannot beat Jeff in a general election and are relying on sleazy attacks and misleading ads,” Nick Bayer, a Hurd campaign advisor, told National Review. “If Adam wants to have a say in the Republican primary, he should join the party.”
Hurd led Hanks in recent polling for the GOP primary race in the third congressional district. Voters head to the polls on Tuesday, and a Hurd campaign spokesperson told NR they expect Democratic spending on the GOP primary to hit $1 million by then.
The district should be safely Republican — former president Donald Trump carried the district twice — but an extreme nominee could alienate more moderate voters to the advantage of Frisch, the presumptive Democratic nominee who has raised more than $13 million.
“There is nothing less at stake than control of the House of Representatives,” Bayer told NR. “Jeff is the only Republican candidate who can beat Adam Frisch in the general election.”
One Frisch-funded ad attacks Hurd for “ducking debates,” which his campaign said were moderated by a member of his opponent’s team. Another highlights Hanks’s praise for Trump and calls him “too conservative for Colorado,” pointing to his immigration and abortion stances. The Frisch campaign also likens Hanks to Representative Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.) — who currently holds the third district seat but will run in the safer fourth this cycle — in an apparent attempt to boost his profile.
But a national Republican super PAC is striking back.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, aligned with House GOP leadership, is dropping about $400,000 to air ads criticizing Hanks on guns, according to Colorado Politics.
“Why are Democrat mega donors spending so much to prop up Ron Hanks’ campaign? Republicans, beware,” CLF Communications Director Courtney Parella told NR in a statement.
Hanks called the CLF’s criticisms “lies” and his opponent a “RINO hack” in a statement to Colorado Politics.
“Speaker Johnson’s CLF PAC shot itself in the face with their lies about my conservative record,” Hanks said.
Hanks attended Trump’s January 6 rally but said he did not enter the Capitol building or do anything illegal, according to Colorado Public Radio. The following day, he told his constituents Antifa was responsible for the storming of the Capitol. In a 2022 speech to the Colorado GOP assembly, he said he “fully expected Donald Trump to win in 2020 — and he did.”
“When we saw what we saw on election night in 2020, it changed everything,” Hanks told the assembly. “Just like the changes we felt after 9/11.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee cited Hanks’s comment in a press release earlier this year that said “House Republicans remain a threat to our democracy.” Frisch has campaigned on the message that voters are “sick and tired” of “extremism.”
His campaign denies the ads aim to prop up Hanks. Frisch’s campaign manager told the Colorado outlet the ads are meant as attacks on both candidates since both could win the GOP nomination.
Democrat groups have used this strategy before, including in Colorado. Super PAC Democratic Colorado bought spent more than a million dollars in 2022 airing aids aimed at boosting certain Senate and gubernatorial candidates in GOP primaries, including Hanks during his bid for governor.