{"id":38434,"date":"2022-09-13T15:59:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T21:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-rancher-in-weld-county-canceled-his-solar-project-to-spend-6-million-against-jared-polis\/"},"modified":"2022-09-13T21:59:33","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T21:59:33","slug":"a-rancher-in-weld-county-canceled-his-solar-project-to-spend-6-million-against-jared-polis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-rancher-in-weld-county-canceled-his-solar-project-to-spend-6-million-against-jared-polis\/","title":{"rendered":"A rancher in Weld County canceled his solar project to spend $6 million against Jared Polis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Steve
Steve Wells and Jared Polis (Associated Press photos)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis has spent $7 million of his own money on his re-election campaign this year, reminding Colorado\u2019s political world that he is one of the biggest financial forces in state politics.<\/p>\n

Not far behind, though, is a new face: Steve Wells, the 64-year-old heir to a ranching and drilling dynasty in northeast Colorado.<\/p>\n

Wells has loaded $6 million into an independent spending group to support the Republican cause. So far, it\u2019s spent money on billboards and digital ads that oppose Polis and, in some cases, support his challenger, Heidi Ganahl.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t about me. It\u2019s not about Heidi. This is about fixing something that I see going south rapidly. I mean, this is about the people of Colorado,\u201d Wells told CPR News.<\/p>\n

Wells\u2019 family has ranched in Colorado since 1888. His opposition to Polis is tied, in part, to restrictions instituted by the state on oil and gas drilling. His family\u2019s 32,000-acre farm has been the site of drilling, The Denver Post<\/em> reported in 2014.<\/p>\n

This type of heavy spending from a single individual has become increasingly common in U.S. politics, but it hasn\u2019t been seen as much in Colorado, said Democratic campaign finance attorney Scott Martinez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is new in Colorado. We haven\u2019t had a well-financed candidate who is going to be trying to take out the governor,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cIt certainly grabbed my interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wells said he\u2019s making some sacrifices for the spending. The political spending is taking away money that could otherwise have gone to charities or to projects on the family\u2019s land.<\/p>\n

\u201cI canceled a solar project to do this,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is probably the most important thing I\u2019ve ever done in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wells\u2019 concerns today go far beyond oil, gas and agriculture. In a promotional video, the rancher shared a dark vision of the future, saying that \u201cthis could be the last election that ever matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t Democrats and Republicans,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a fight against good and evil and right and wrong. This is for the soul of our children, our state and our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the interview, he affirmed that he believes the governor himself is evil.<\/p>\n

Wells blames Democrats for crime, saying they\u2019ve \u201cdemonized the police and defunded the police.\u201d (Colorado Democrats set aside more than $100 million of federal funding for police hiring, school security and victims of crime this year. Crime is rising in the state, with the parties fiercely debating the causes.)<\/p>\n

Wells also warned of a \u201csocial engineering project\u201d in the schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democrats have turned our school systems into a social engineering project. They\u2019re more worried about transgender athletes and alternative lifestyles than teaching our children anything,\u201d Wells said in the video.<\/p>\n

Lion\u2019s share of money benefits Ganahl<\/div>\n

At a recent forum, Ganahl said that her response to climate change would rely on producing more fossil fuels in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my goals is to get our oil and gas workers back to work because we produce the cleanest energy in the planet right here in Colorado. There is absolutely no reason for us to not produce the energy and instead go to Russia,\u201d Ganahl reportedly said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an argument based on the idea that if the world needs oil, it should be produced in a place like Colorado, where it\u2019s done more efficiently and with less waste like methane. Wells shares much the same perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that the green energy coming is a big deal, but until we get there, we can\u2019t break everybody (from oil and gas),\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n

Ganahl also has supported a group that aims to keep transgender women and girls out of women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve grown to respect and love all the people involved in women\u2019s sports. It\u2019s really important that we protect that for our daughters and I will be a warrior for that,\u201d Ganahl told the crowd at a recent event.<\/p>\n

Wells said that his money came without conditions \u2013 Ganahl didn\u2019t have to embrace any particular policy stance to win his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I haven\u2019t seen Heidi since before I started this (independent expenditure committee), but I can ask some pretty tough questions and I will give her this: She did not ignore or skirt one question. I asked her and I was impressed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wells said he hadn\u2019t decided where else his money might go in the election, but he has focused on the governor\u2019s race because he sees Polis as ultimately responsible for what happens in the state.<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t decided whether to spend on the U.S. Senate or state Senate campaigns, where Republicans hope to retake some power from Democrats this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you have to start at the top,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ganahl said in an interview she was \u201cfocused on what I believe is right for Colorado,\u201d not on one supporter\u2019s agenda. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna do everything we can to take back Colorado. And I think there\u2019s a lot of excited people to take this state in a different direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats derided the new ads as \u201cpartisan politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs expected, here come the same old attacks from the far-right who want to see a MAGA Republican like Heidi Ganahl as governor. Coloradans know better, and can see right through these extreme tactics,\u201d said Kailee Stiles, spokesperson for the Colorado Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Deep Colorado Wells has already begun its advertising sprint with images that show Polis and President Joe Biden together or portray Polis with a cartoonish crown atop his head.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

says he wants to counterbalance a multimillionaire governor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2811,819,28,826,1126],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-campaign-finance","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-political-campaigns","tag-politics-general"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38434","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=38434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38434"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}