{"id":50827,"date":"2020-10-23T19:45:06","date_gmt":"2020-10-24T01:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gops-supreme-court-push-may-box-in-cory-gardner\/"},"modified":"2020-10-24T01:45:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-24T01:45:06","slug":"gops-supreme-court-push-may-box-in-cory-gardner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gops-supreme-court-push-may-box-in-cory-gardner\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP\u2019s Supreme Court push may box in Cory Gardner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner\u2019s re-election hinges on convincing the state\u2019s crucial slice of independent voters he\u2019s a nonpartisan problem-solver who will look out for the state.<\/span>Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2014 Six years ago, Colorado Democrats failed to convince enough voters to reject Cory Gardner\u2019s bid for the U.S. Senate. Their warnings that the Republican could, someday, be the confirming vote for a Supreme Court justice who could overturn Roe v. Wade proved ineffective.<\/p>\n

Now Gardner, 46, is poised to be one of the votes that places President Donald Trump\u2019s nominee Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court just before the election. And Democrats think they have the votes to punish him for it.<\/p>\n

Gardner has long been considered both one of the nimblest Republican politicians and also one of the most vulnerable. His 2014 run was praised as the best Senate campaign that year for defusing Democratic attacks about his role in a \u201cwar on women\u201d and staying on message. But he\u2019s also a Republican in a state that has shifted sharply to Democrats since Trump was elected \u2014 the president lost the state by 5% in 2016 and then Democrats won the governorship by 11% and every other statewide race in 2018. Gardner has struggled to escape the president\u2019s long shadow.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuck and timing are everything in politics, and Cory\u2019s on the wrong end of all these elements,\u201d said Mike Stratton, a Democratic strategist who advised the man Gardner ousted in 2014, Sen. Mark Udall.<\/p>\n

Gardner is now up against John Hickenlooper, a popular former two-term governor of Colorado and Denver mayor.<\/p>\n

Gardner\u2019s reelection hinges on convincing the state\u2019s crucial slice of independent voters he\u2019s a nonpartisan problem-solver who will look out for the state. On the campaign trail, he\u2019s emphasized his work on state-centric, uncontroversial issues \u2013 moving the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to western Colorado, co-writing a bill to fund maintenance at national parks and creating a national suicide prevention number.<\/p>\n

\u201cI vote 100% of the time for the people of Colorado,\u201d Gardner said during a debate Friday evening..<\/p>\n

But Gardner\u2019s also been a reliable vote for his party under Trump. Trump praised Gardner for being on his side \u201c100% of the time\u201d at a rally in February, and voters got a reminder of that when Gardner said he supports Barrett\u2019s nomination. Republicans acknowledge that may be enough to prevent him from escaping Trump\u2019s downward pull.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying a prayer he doesn\u2019t get swept out by our president,\u201d said Linda Heintz, 71, a registered Republican in suburban Denver who plans to vote early for Gardner. Heintz still hasn\u2019t decided whether she can vote for Trump but figured Gardner was a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done nothing to not deserve reelection,\u201d she said, acknowledging she doesn\u2019t think many others in the state agree with her view.<\/p>\n

Joan Kresek doesn\u2019t. The 65-year-old graphic design professor is an independent-turned-Democrat who exemplifies Colorado\u2019s transformation from a swing state into an increasingly blue bastion.<\/p>\n

\u201cCory Gardner is attached to Trump, whom I\u2019m 100% against,\u201d Kresek said, saying Gardner\u2019s support for a rapid replacement to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg \u201cis what he stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOP pollster David Flaherty noted that the Barrett nomination is especially difficult for Gardner. The independents he needs to win aren\u2019t just non-partisan, they\u2019re anti-partisanship, disliking even \u201cthe impression of partisan decision-making,\u201d he said. Republicans\u2019 push to confirm Barrett before the election, when they thwarted Democrats\u2019 attempt at a less-rushed confirmation four years ago, is a tough sell.<\/p>\n

Laura Chapin, a Democratic operative who focuses on abortion rights, noted that Coloradans will also be voting on a ballot measure backed by conservatives that would ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy. They\u2019re also facing the prospect that Barrett could vote to overturn the court decision protecting a woman\u2019s right to have an abortion, and rule against the Affordable Care Act. In 2014, it was easy for Gardner to dismiss these scenarios as partisan fever dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in the realm of the hypothetical anymore,\u201d Chapin said.<\/p>\n

Gardner exemplifies the bind several Republicans have found themselves in during the Trump era. In 2016, he reluctantly endorsed Trump, only to withdraw his endorsement after the \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape revealed Trump had boasted about sexually assaulting women.<\/p>\n

But once Trump was elected, Gardner tied himself to the president. In 2018, he lead the GOP\u2019s effort to win Senate seats, and advocated for candidates to tout their support of the president. He\u2019s carefully expressed displeasure at some of Trump\u2019s more controversial statements, such as the statement that there were \u201cgood people\u201d on both sides of a white supremacist march in Charlottesville. At Friday\u2019s debate, Gardner without hesitation condemned the extremist group known as the Proud Boys and white supremacism \u2013 two things Trump would not do on the debate stage last week.<\/p>\n

But Gardner has generally been a reliable vote for Trump\u2019s top priorities, including repealing the Affordable Care Act. He has voted to confirm conservative judges and against removing the president from office following his impeachment.<\/p>\n

Gardner swiftly endorsed Trump\u2019s reelection in early 2019, and during the rally in late February, Trump returned the favor. \u201cCory is a champion for the people of Colorado,\u201d Trump told a packed arena in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

Democrats have repeatedly tied that around Gardner\u2019s neck. \u201cCory Gardner has stood beside him 100% of the time, he has supported Donald Trump 100% of the time,\u201d Hickenlooper said at a recent debate, where he also repeatedly noted Gardner\u2019s support of Barrett\u2019s confirmation.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper also repeatedly dismissed barbed attacks from Gardner as \u201ctypical Washington\u201d and said \u201cnew blood\u201d is needed in the capitol.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an ironic echo of how Gardner won in 2014, when he tied the incumbent Udall to then-unpopular President Barack Obama, portrayed himself as a fresh face and promised in one ad that \u201cwhen my party is wrong, I\u2019ll say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stratton, the Udall strategist, was bemused by the parallels. \u201cSix years later, Gardner is Udall to some extent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats think they have the vote to punish him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50827","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=50827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50827"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}