Community Corner
Trump Blasts ‘RINO' Senate Candidate Joe O'Dea As Colorado Ballots Go Out
"MAGA doesn't Vote for stupid people with big mouths," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social website. "Good luck Joe!"
October 17, 2022
As county clerks across Colorado prepared to send out mail ballots to voters on Monday, former President Donald Trump weighed in on one of the state’s most-watched 2022 races.
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Trump blasted Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea, a Denver construction CEO, as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, over comments O’Dea made about a potential Trump presidential campaign in 2024.
“MAGA doesn’t Vote for stupid people with big mouths,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social website. “Good luck Joe!”
Find out what's happening in Denverfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
In a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, O’Dea was asked by host Dana Bash whether the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol should disqualify Trump from running again. O’Dea called the events of Jan. 6 “a black eye for our country,” though he has previously said he doesn’t believe Trump deserves blame for the Capitol attack.
“I don’t think Donald Trump should run again,” O’Dea said Sunday. “I’m going to actively campaign against Donald Trump and make sure that we’ve got four or five really great Republicans right now — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott. They can run and serve for eight years.”
A first-time candidate who has pitched himself as a moderate on social issues, O’Dea has walked a tightrope throughout his campaign as he seeks to win over moderate and unaffiliated voters without alienating the conservative Republican base.
He did not publicly state his opposition to a Trump 2024 bid until after the June GOP primary, when he defeated far-right state Rep. Ron Hanks with 55% of the vote. His campaign clarified that O’Dea would still support Trump in the general election if the former president wins the GOP nomination, but O’Dea has since backed off of that position in interviews.
O’Dea faces an uphill battle against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who is seeking his third full Senate term, in a state that has trended increasingly blue in recent elections. "Bennet has led O’Dea in recent polling by an average of eight percentage points," according to elections analysis website FiveThirtyEight.
In his Truth Social post, Trump faulted O’Dea for “having a good old time saying that he wants to ‘distance’ himself from President Trump, and other slightly nasty things.”
GOP state Rep. Dave Williams, a far-right election denier who mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn earlier this year, reacted to Trump’s comments in a Twitter post.
“Ouch,” Williams wrote. “Maybe Joe’s campaign shouldn’t alienate the base 3 weeks before an election.”
Trump’s criticism follows Hanks’ endorsement of Libertarian candidate Brian Peotter, who has put election denial and total opposition to abortion at the center of his campaign. Peotter wrote on Twitter Monday that Trump’s attack on O’Dea “reads like an endorsement for my campaign pretty clearly.”
In an Oct. 7 appearance on the conservative “Chuck and Julie Show,” Hanks, who received just under 45% of the vote in the GOP’s June primary, said that while neither Peotter nor O’Dea stood a chance of being elected, Republican voters should vote for Peotter to send a message to party leaders.
“It’s our time now as grassroots Colorado conservatives to step in. We have a big battle ahead to try to reform this leadership,” said Hanks. “It’s got to be a bloodbath.”
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