Gino Campana made a graceful exit from the U.S. Senate race after finishing 4th at the GOP state assembly and coming up well short of the delegate votes required to make the primary ballot.
He didn’t complain the system was rigged, or that he was somehow cheated, demand a recount or make a scene.
When county chairs attempted to tell KBB that their clickers were non operational and they could not cast votes she did not care. Your vote and voice matters. This will not stand. pic.twitter.com/hXIHnApJmI
— Danielle Neuschwanger for Colorado Governor 2022 (@DanielleforCO) April 10, 2022
In an interview with the The Coloradoan after it was all over, Campana shared his hindsight of what went wrong — many new delegates participated in the process, and they were clearly still upset over the 2020 election.
His sense of humor was still intact, and he didn’t take the loss personally.
“It was a tough assembly and we didn’t come out on top. It was an awesome experience until about 4 p.m. on Saturday,” Campana said. “In that little brief moment, it was not so fun.”
Campana ran a solid campaign, but in the end he admitted his mistakes.
(Joe) O’Dea petitioned his way on to the ballot, forgoing the state assembly process. In hindsight, Campana said he wished he had taken that same route.
“Every consultant told me to do that, but I pushed back. I wanted to take it through the process,” Campana said Friday.
It’s very refreshing to see a politician in this day and age admit to their mistakes, lose with dignity and grace, then move forward.
Gino’s a real class act, and he would have made a good Senator.
Hopefully, we’ll see him again someday.