<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2013 Colorado\u2019s Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates wasted little time Wednesday in staking out their starkly contrasting visions \u2013 one liberal, one aligned with President Donald Trump \u2013 in a state whose unaffiliated voters will have a decisive role in choosing a successor to term-limited Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n
Republican Walker Stapleton, the two-term state treasurer and winner of Tuesday\u2019s GOP gubernatorial primary, lashed out at Democratic candidate U.S. Rep. Jared Polis as a free-spender out of touch with Coloradans.<\/p>\n
Polis cast Stapleton as bound to Trump and as someone who offers no fiscal solutions to Colorado\u2019s chronically underfunded roads and schools and its striking gaps in health care coverage \u2013 disparities that disproportionately burden rural eastern and western Colorado with few insurance carriers and some of the nation\u2019s highest rates.<\/p>\n
Both seek to succeed Hickenlooper, a centrist business-friendly Democrat who has presided over one of the strongest economic expansions of any U.S. state \u2013 largely fueled by oil and gas production \u2013 and who is an ardent defender of public lands that are vital to Colorado\u2019s multibillion-dollar recreation industry.<\/p>\n
Hickenlooper\u2019s name has been linked with Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich\u2019s as a 2020 presidential ticket.<\/p>\n
Republicans haven\u2019t held the governor\u2019s office since 2007, but Colorado remains a purple state. Republicans control the state Senate and hold the treasurer\u2019s, attorney general\u2019s and secretary of state\u2019s offices. Four of Colorado\u2019s seven congressmen are Republicans, as is U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner.<\/p>\n
Gardner and top state Republicans closed ranks around Stapleton on Wednesday, eager to exploit what they see as Polis\u2019s vulnerabilities: His advocacy of a regional single-payer health care system; his support for tight local control of fracking; and his pledge to unravel limits on raising taxes \u2013 limits that have frustrated Democrats\u2019 attempts to invest needed billions of dollars in schools and roads.<\/p>\n
Voters oppose \u201cBernie Sanders-style health care coming to Colorado,\u201d Stapleton, a supporter of Trump\u2019s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, told KMGH-TV. He was referring to a failed 2016 single-payer ballot initiative.<\/p>\n
Stapleton also said Polis\u2019 commitment to renewable energy standards for the state would \u201cdrive 230,000 jobs from Colorado and take $32 billion out of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polis, a five-term congressman, said Stapleton offered no solutions to infrastructure investment or strengthening health care. He criticized Stapleton\u2019s embrace of Trump on immigration \u2013 including the separation of immigrant families along the Mexico border \u2013 and a federal tax cut that Polis insists has not benefited lower-income taxpayers.<\/p>\n
In Washington on Wednesday, Polis voted against a GOP bill that, in part, would have created a path to citizenship for some immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children but also would provide $25 billion for Trump\u2019s promised border wall. With nearly half of Republicans opposing it, the bill failed.<\/p>\n
A voter-passed 2016 initiative allowed unaffiliated voters to participate in Tuesday\u2019s primaries. More than a quarter-million did so, and most of them voted Democratic, according to the secretary of state\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Republicans were undaunted.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving secured the GOP base, Walker Stapleton can focus on an unaffiliated population that represents the true middle,\u201d said Ryan Lynch, a former executive director of the state Republican Party. \u201cI don\u2019t think Jared Polis\u2019 socialist rhetoric is going to resonate.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Trump\u2019s influence in a state that went for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, Lynch added: \u201cIt\u2019s no longer a divisive area among the party faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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