This week on Colorado Politicking, legislative reporter Pat Poblete and political correspondent Ernest Luning provide the latest updates from the campaign trail, touching on the expanding Republican field seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and the latest slip-up from Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl. Meanwhile, chief legislative reporter Marianne Goodland dove in to her reporting on a slip-up from Gov. Jared Polis, the man Ganahl will face if she makes it out of the GOP primary.

Luning dove into detail on the eight-person field competing for the Republican nomination to challenge Bennet next November, though noted recently released campaign finance reports show “there is no clear frontrunner at this point.” He highlighted the $253,000 fundraising haul brought in by former Olympian Eli Bremmer, a sum that showed “there’s a lot of catching up to do.”

“$250,000 or so isn’t that much for an initial quarter in a Senate race compared to Michael Bennett, who raised $2 million in this quarter and $2 million in the previous quarter and about $2 million in the quarter before that.”

Luning also expanded on his reporting on Ganahl, whose campaign had to stand up an impromptu contact tracing effort after holding an indoor event with conservative radio host Dennis Prager, who announced after the that he tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 prior to meeting with Ganahl and had been attempting to get infected.

Luning noted Ganahl is fully vaccinated and subsequently had a negative COVID-19 test and wasn’t showing any symptoms. 

Still, he added: “It’s not the kind of publicity you want out of the gate when you’re getting your campaign off the ground.”

Goodland followed up by detailing comments made by Polis on Thursday that earned the governor a bit of bad PR of his own.

Polis took strong criticism over comments on the renaming of Squaw Mountain in Clear Creek County.

The Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board recommended in September the governor approve the renaming of the mountain to Mestaa’?hehe (pronounced mess-ta-HAY) Mountain. The name is in honor of the wife of William Bent, also known as “Owl Woman,” a Southern Cheyenne leader.

Polis’ staff backed the move, but he to told the board during its Thursday meeting he was initially inclined to reject the recommendation because the name is hard to pronounce and spell,. He indicated that if people are unable to pronounce it, they’ll go back to using the previous name, which is a slur.

Those comments, Goodland said, landed him in hot water with members of the public, including a Democratic state lawmaker, as well as members of the public that were tuned into the meeting.

“One person called Polis a white colonizer,” she said. “Another person said that he was trying to dumb down the population.

“The governor’s office has been furiously backpedaling ever since… but this has caused some friction at a time when Gov. Polis was trying to work pretty collaboratively with the native tribes.” 

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