Stapleton\u2019s repeated criticism of the liberal Polis underscores Republican fears that the party could lose control of the state Senate in Tuesday\u2019s election. The Senate has acted as a check on attempts by the Democratic-led House to restrict gun rights and raise taxes for public schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cColorado does not want a socialist for governor,\u201d Stapleton declared when Polis, an advocate of universal health care, campaigned with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders last month.<\/p>\n
In response, Polis cites a high-tech entrepreneurial career that made him wealthy before he entered Congress in 2009 and has let him personally invest more than $22 million in his campaign this year.<\/p>\n
Polis and his supporters largely view the race as a referendum on President Donald Trump, whom Stapleton has embraced. Trump\u2019s efforts to dismantle former President Barack Obama\u2019s health care law top the list of issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth care is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot,\u201d Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told activists while campaigning with Polis at Servicios de la Raza, a Denver community center. \u201cYou need guardrails here in Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado Republicans haven\u2019t held the governor\u2019s seat since 2007. Early returns suggest Stapleton, 44, is the underdog in an election in which independents, the state\u2019s largest voting bloc, are turning out in high numbers, as they did in Colorado\u2019s Democratic primaries. If elected, Polis, 43, would be Colorado\u2019s first openly gay governor.<\/p>\n
A Democratic-controlled Statehouse could move forward on gun regulations, expand public school funding and limit drilling options for Colorado\u2019s $31 billion oil and gas industry \u2014 one that\u2019s prospered under centrist Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, a former petroleum geologist who is term-limited.<\/p>\n
Colorado\u2019s Republican-led Senate has forced compromise on those issues. Senate President Kevin Grantham credits that compromise for the state\u2019s fast-growing economy, one of the strongest in the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat balance of government is good for predictability and stability and steady sailing for businesses,\u201d Grantham said.<\/p>\n
Republicans have a one-vote Senate edge entering the election. A cluster of races in Denver\u2019s suburbs will determine the outcome, and they have attracted money from the national parties and outside groups.<\/p>\n
Voters have been bombarded with daily mailers, television ads, texts and door knocks in targeted races such as Democratic state Rep. Faith Winter\u2019s challenge of Republican state Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik. Democrat Hillary Clinton won the district by 5 percentage points in 2016.<\/p>\n
Stapleton has attacked Polis\u2019 advocacy of green energy and publicly funded preschool and kindergarten. He defends state constitutional limits on taxes and spending that require voter approval for any tax hike.<\/p>\n
As treasurer, Stapleton worked with both parties to ensure a stable state investment portfolio and to rescue an underfunded state pension fund.<\/p>\n
He claims Polis\u2019 plans for fully funded preschool and kindergarten and universal health care coverage would triple Colorado\u2019s budget \u2013 if Polis could raise the taxes to fund them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a big believer that if you ask people to pay for things, you have to explain how you\u2019re actually going to fund government, health care, transportation,\u201d Stapleton said.<\/p>\n
Polis pledges to \u201cbuild coalitions\u201d to fund transportation and schools and promote green energy investment \u2013 suggesting that restrictive tax laws eventually need to change in a state whose population has grown from 4.3 million in 2000 to an estimated 5.7 million this year.<\/p>\n
Polis called for restricting access to guns for those in crisis and urged voters to elect a governor who supports abortion rights.<\/p>\n
Stapleton said he would be a \u201cpro-life governor\u201d who would respect Roe v. Wade as the law of the land but didn\u2019t address during the campaign what he would do if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn that ruling.<\/p>\n
Trump weighed in Thursday on Twitter, saying Stapleton \u201cwill be an extraordinary Governor for the State of Colorado\u201d and calling Polis \u201cweak on crime and weak on borders \u2013 could never do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polis \u2013 who founded high schools for new immigrants and English learners \u2013 cited Trump\u2019s escalating midterm rhetoric about immigration as a critical reason to vote Democratic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m willing to stand up to this president or any president that tries to profit on division and on fear-mongering,\u201d he told the Servicios de la Raza crowd. \u201cColorado could either elect a Donald Trump \u2018yes man\u2019 as governor or somebody with a track record of creating opportunities for families and bridging the great divides in our state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stapleton\u2019s repeated criticism of the liberal Polis underscores Republican fears that the party could lose control of the state Senate in Tuesday\u2019s election. The Senate has acted as a check on attempts by the Democratic-led House to restrict gun rights and raise taxes for public schools. \u201cColorado does not want a socialist for governor,\u201d Stapleton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1509],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-state-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97222","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=97222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97222"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}