Joe O’Dea refuses to bow to media pressure and is making a name for himself as one of the most disciplined Republicans running for the U.S. Senate.
O’Dea has avoided cringe-inducing soundbites on issues of abortion, which is all the media and Democrats want to talk about, and he speaks in plain English to Colorado voters, reports the Washington Free Beacon.
“We got fentanyl killing our kids,” and, “We need to complete the wall” are the sorts of things you’ll hear O’Dea tell voters on the campaign trail. O’Dea’s remarks don’t cause voters to raise their eyebrows in confusion at references to buzzwords or ideological concepts found on Twitter or niche policy journals.
Democrats actually helped O’Dea resonate with voters when they spent millions in advertising during the GOP primary claiming that O’Dea was, gasp, a moderate.
Democrats assumed this would turn off Republican voters and send them casting ballots for the more conservative Ron Hanks.
It did not.
As O’Dea explains:
“We’ve built a huge coalition across the state. We’ve got Trump Republicans, we’ve got GOP Republicans, we’ve got the unaffiliated, and we’ve got some really disenchanted Democrats that are mad at their party for all these policies,” O’Dea said in Littleton. “I want to do what’s right for Colorado.”
Then there’s the recent poll that shows O’Dea in a dead heat with incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in a state where President Biden won by 13 points.
In case no one’s noticed, and the media certainly have not, Bennet isn’t exactly throwing out the welcome mat for Biden to campaign for him here in Colorado.