{"id":37882,"date":"2022-10-13T04:30:55","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T10:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-bennet-odea-race-tightens-odea-hopes-to-appeal-to-middle-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:40:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:40:54","slug":"as-bennet-odea-race-tightens-odea-hopes-to-appeal-to-middle-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-bennet-odea-race-tightens-odea-hopes-to-appeal-to-middle-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"As Bennet-O\u2019Dea race tightens, O\u2019Dea hopes to appeal to \u2018middle Colorado\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, left, and his Republican challenger, Joe O'Dea. (Colorado Sun photos)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A poll released Tuesday<\/a> shows Joe O\u2019Dea, the Republican candidate challenging Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, has shrunk the gap between himself and his opponent to seven points. Republican leaders have said for months<\/a> they hope to flip the seat, which Bennet has held since 2009.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea has pledged he won\u2019t become beholden to the party line. But that kind of rhetoric hasn\u2019t stopped Republicans leaders from putting their support, and dollars, behind O\u2019Dea\u2019s candidacy. Politico reported O<\/a>ct. 7 that the super PAC backing O\u2019Dea, the American Policy Fund, received $1.25 million from the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea styles himself as the perfect fit for a state he says comprises voters who are \u201cfiscally conservative and socially libertarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really my candidacy,\u201d he said in an interview Wednesday with The Durango Herald\u2019s<\/em> Editorial Board. \u201cI kind of represent what the middle of Colorado is looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea visited Durango, Cortez and Pagosa Springs during the primary campaign season, and plans to visit Southwest Colorado again in coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Perhaps nothing has drawn more attention to O\u2019Dea\u2019s political alignment than his stance on abortion. He has caught flak <\/a>for his early support of Colorado Proposition 15, which would have banned abortions after 22 weeks. However, he says that as candidate, he supports a woman\u2019s right to choose to have an abortion up to 20 weeks or after that only in cases of rape, incest or in a medical emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been very consistent about my position in terms of Roe v. Wade, in terms of women\u2019s rights since I got into this election,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cI have been pro choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

His website prominently displays a letter from anti-abortion Colorado conservative leaders warning that conservatives must rally around O\u2019Dea to prevent Bennet\u2019s reelection, saying such an outcome would be \u201cbad for conservatives and for the anti-abortion cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

In accordance with a plurality of Colorado voters<\/a>, O\u2019Dea says inflation is among the most pressing issues. His approach, he said, begins with energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to embrace solar, we\u2019ve got to embrace wind, we\u2019ve got to embrace perhaps nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, oil \u2013 all of the above energies,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to raise the platform and we\u2019ve got to start producing again here in Colorado in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he is quick to name green energy as an important field of development, O\u2019Dea urges caution when it comes to transitioning away from oil and gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cShutting one set of fuels off before we\u2019re ready to engage the next generation of energy is really hard on working Americans,\u201d he warned. \u201cSo there\u2019s a cost balance in this, we can\u2019t do it all on the backs of working Americans. We need to be incremental, we need to be thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea derives his support for green energy from his belief that reducing inflation begins with producing more energy domestically of all kinds. With respect to human-caused climate change, O\u2019Dea told Denver7 <\/a>news station in June, \u201cI think there\u2019s a debate there still to be had.\u201d<\/p>\n

While O\u2019Dea isn\u2019t afraid to vocalize support for federal spending in areas he sees as necessary \u2013 law enforcement and addiction treatment among them \u2013 when asked what positive accomplishments he saw on his opponent\u2019s resume, he listed Bennet\u2019s work on the child tax credit.<\/p>\n

However, he was quick to express disappointment about Bennet\u2019s failure to make the credit permanent \u2013 a failure for which Bennet has Sen. Joe Manchin to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m furious at Joe Manchin, personally, because he\u2019s the one person that didn\u2019t allow us to make the child tax credit permanent,\u201d Bennet told a crowd of supporters Monday in Durango.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea has previously pledged<\/a> to lead in Manchin\u2019s mold, declaring he will be \u201ca Republican Joe Manchin.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story erred in saying Joe O\u2019Dea hadn\u2019t yet visited La Plata County as part of a campaign stop. He visited Durango in March<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican candidate buoyed by poll that shows him within seven points of Democratic challenger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2786,266,28,826,774,1126,1509,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-candidates","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-political-campaigns","tag-political-candidates","tag-politics-general","tag-state-elections","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83818,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37882\/revisions\/83818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37882"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}