GREENWOOD VILLAGE ? Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley stumped for U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner Monday afternoon before an invited audience of about 100 Colorado Republicans and media, characterizing Gardner as fighting for Republican values yet willing to work with others to accomplish his goals.

At the gathering at The Dome at AMG, an event space in Greenwood Village, Haley cited international security, the tax cuts passed by Republicans, and support for energy jobs and cutting regulations.

Gardner is running for a second term that a crowded field of Democrats would like to deny him in next year’s election. It’s possible that former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who ended his presidential bid last week, may enter the race as soon as Tuesday.

In a lounge at the bank after they spoke before an audience for an hour, Gardner and Haley chatted with Colorado Politics. Gardner said he was not concerned with possibly facing the former governor.

“I’m not concerned about any of them,” he said of the field of Democrats. “I’m concerned with doing what’s right for Colorado.”

As far as his pick from nearly a dozen potential opponents, Gardner replied after a laugh, “I like them all.”

He said he would seek another term based on his accomplishments.

“Look at what we’ve been able to do for this state: the Bureau of Land Management headquarters coming to Grand Junction because of my work; the permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund; Anvil Points, returning money to the people of Colorado that hadn’t been restored in decades,” he said.

“Those are the values and the things I’ve championed and fought for.”

He pivoted to Democrats’ agenda nationally and in Colorado.

“I’m not going to let this state turn into what the left wants it to, and that is socialism on full display,” Gardner said.

Gardner cited the progressives’ Green New Deal in Congress, and efforts by Democrats in Colorado to throttle the oil and gas industry.

“You can see it in their attempts to take over health care through a socialized medicine system,” he said, referring to a number of Democratic presidential candidates’ support for “Medicare-for-all.”

He added legislative Democrats’ vote in the spring to award Colorado’s nine Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

On the same day liberal activists launched their “Cardboard Cory” opposition bus tour across the state, Haley was raising Gardner’s conservative profile. She is arguably President Donald Trump’s most popular former insider. Moreover, Haley is seen as a rising star for the GOP’s next generation after Trump leaves office.

Democrats and progressive activists are campaigning on Gardner’s lack of town-hall type events, but rather public events that are not widely announced. Candidates at the top of the Democratic pack do the same thing, because such announcements attract political protesters eager to upstage the candidate.

Monday’s conversation with Haley was covered by about a half dozen news outlets, and a few reporters were allowed to question the pair after the formal discussion.

“Senator Gardner has spent August recess trying to hide from his constituents and dodging basic questions on health care, climate change, immigration reform and background checks” on guns, Alyssa Roberts of the Colorado Democratic Party said in a statement.

“He won’t announce a public town hall because he can’t defend his record of putting wealthy donors ahead of Coloradans — so another closed-door fundraiser with a former Trump official shows Gardner is continuing to prioritize collecting campaign cash from special interests over addressing the concerns of actual voters.”

Gardners campaign said Monday’s event was not a fundraiser and was free to attend.

Two years ago Trump lost Colorado to Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points, and an unpopular president could prove to be a weight on the back of Gardner’s campaign next year.

“President Trump’s popularity, one way or the other, that could lean on his reputation some,” Haley said of Gardner to Colorado Politics. “But at the end of the day, the voter wants to know not who the president is or what’s been said, but they want to know what you’ve done.”

The president, however, has great respect for Gardner, she said.

She said she detested the toxic environment of Washington, D.C., but added that as as UN ambassador she saw true evil around the globe.

“What we’re having is a debate,” Haley said. “We have to remember that on our worst day we’re still blessed to to Americans,” Haley told the crowd.

In February, the Washington Post reported that “Haley – who would be 53 on Election Day in 2024 – is at the top of many GOP shortlists as a potential national candidate whose biography as the daughter of Indian immigrants and a former governor and ambassador would make her a compelling post-Trump Republican standard-bearer.”

After leaving the administration at the end of last year, Haley founded Stand for America, a conservative advocacy group “promoting public policies that strengthen America’s economy, culture and national security,” according to its website.

She became the first female governor of South Carolina in 2011 after three terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

In the current Republican environment, given Trump’s controversial remarks related to race, Haley notably signed legislation in 2015 to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol. A year later Time magazine named Haley one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

She was sized up as a potential running mate for the Trump that year.

Asked by Colorado Politics whether Coloradans might someday see her on their national ballot, Haley was coy but not dismissive.

“Right now it’s a year at a time, and this year is about making sure Cory gets reelected,” she said. “A year is a lifetime in politics. I’ve never planned ahead, because it’s wasted energy, so right now I want to see President Trump reelected and I want to see Cory Gardner reelected. I want the Senate (GOP) keep its majority.”

Trump announced soon after his election that Haley was his nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She was confirmed by the Senate 96-4, picking up the vote of Colorado’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, another presidential candidate, as well Gardner’s support.

She shares Gardner’s tough stance on North Korean missile tests. She said he called her directly every time North Korea tested a missile.

Gardner sought to in vain in 2017 to pass a bipartisan bill to ban any entity from doing business with North Korea (“or its enablers”) from using the U.S. financial system, among other calls for careful relations with North Korea. The bill languished in its first committee.

The Colorado senator is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairs its subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy.