{"id":48891,"date":"2021-02-02T00:32:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T07:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rep-ken-buck-says-he-wont-challenge-michael-bennet-in-2022-senate-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:45:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:45:05","slug":"rep-ken-buck-says-he-wont-challenge-michael-bennet-in-2022-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rep-ken-buck-says-he-wont-challenge-michael-bennet-in-2022-senate-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Ken Buck says he won\u2019t challenge Michael Bennet in 2022 Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor, speaks during a campaign stop for Lauren Boebert, candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 3rd Congressional District, on Oct. 23 at the Wild Horse Saloon in Durango.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Republican Ken Buck ruled out a 2022 U.S. Senate bid on Thursday night, ending speculation that he may try to challenge Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet next year in a repeat of their face-off a decade ago.<\/p>\n

The Windsor Republican announced his decision in a tweet, saying he has been \u201chumbled by the interest and support\u201d he has received ahead of a potential Senate bid. He did not provide a reason for why he decided not to challenge Bennet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to continuing to serve and represent the wonderful people of Colorado\u2019s 4th District in Congress,\u201d Buck tweeted.<\/p>\n

Buck also recently announced he won\u2019t be seeking a second two-year term as Colorado GOP chairman, a job he held simultaneously as he served as a congressman.<\/p>\n

Buck was courted by national Republicans seeking a candidate to challenge Bennet in 2022. There are a dearth of GOP elected officials in Colorado, which had made Republicans anxious about who will run against Bennet next year.<\/p>\n

Bennet will seek his third term in the Senate in 2022. He was first appointed to his seat in 2009 by former Gov. Bill Ritter.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s electorate has increasingly moved to the left since Bennet first entered the Senate. No Republican running for statewide office secured more than 45% of the vote in the past two election cycles.<\/p>\n

After Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner\u2019s loss to Democrat John Hickenlooper in November, the only Republican holding statewide office is Heidi Ganahl, a University of Colorado regent. Ganahl is seen as a likely candidate to run against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in 2022.<\/p>\n

Several Republicans \u2013 including state Rep. Patrick Neville, state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg and former 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler \u2013 have expressed interest in running for Buck\u2019s 4th Congressional District seat should he decide to step down.<\/p>\n

Buck has held his 4th District seat since 2015.<\/p>\n

Buck recently assigned some blame for the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s plenty of blame to go around,\u201d Buck said during an appearance on KDVR-TV earlier this month. \u201cThe president deserves some of the blame. His language, obviously, got people fired up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buck said he thinks the riot stems from years of political divisions in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cI blame myself and I blame others in Congress for what happened,\u201d he told KDVR. \u201cThe bottom line is we need to figure out a way to move forward and find ways to develop good policy without the kind of rhetoric and heat that has been developed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Sun editor Larry Ryckman contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windsor Republican announced his decision in a tweet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,29,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48891","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=48891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87479,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48891\/revisions\/87479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48891"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}