Jefferson County Republican Gregory Moore says the seeds of running for office were planted in the summer of 2020, when he returned to the United States after roughly a decade teaching political science at universities in China, though it wasn’t until a year ago in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that he began giving it serious thought.

He told Colorado Politics that a lack of academic freedom in China prompted his decision to return with his family to Colorado, where he had earlier earned his doctorate in international studies at the University of Denver and served as the assistant director of DU’s Center for China-U.S. Cooperation.

“I thought, I have no future here in China. Things were just getting worse and worse,” he said in a recent interview, noting that he landed a spot as a professor of Global Studies and Politics at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood. “It was a good move.”

But as he was getting settled – in the early months of the pandemic – his home country seemed to be going off the rails.

“I come back, and then you’ve got George Floyd, COVID, and then ‘stop the steal,'” he said, referring to former President Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

“I’m a Republican, but I am not on board with all that,” he said. “I thought, ‘What is going on, is the nation coming apart at the seams?’ I thought, ‘This is really messed up. The Republican Party is messed up.’ And then I thought, ‘Maybe I ought to do something.'”

Moore says he’d never considered running for office, but his roughly three decades’ studying China – including five years teaching at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou followed by five years heading the School of International Studies at the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo – made him think he could bring something to the political debate that wasn’t being adequately addressed.

“I was really worried about China, and I’m not sure everybody in Washington really understands how big the China problem is,” he said. “I teach this stuff, so I figured I’d get out there and use some of the things I study.”

After working things out with the administration at CCU – “I can’t afford to give up my job,” he says with a chuckle – Moore decided to add his name to the growing list of Republicans hoping to challenge U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, the Colorado Democrat seeking a third full term this year.

He acknowledges that he’s mounting a long-shot campaign in a field that includes at least two multimillionaires – business owners Gino Campana and Joe O’Dea have each already chipped in at least $500,000 to their own campaigns – and several candidates with years of political experience in the state.

“Is it realistic?” he said. “I can throw in a few thousand of my own dollars in, and that’s about it. I come in at a disadvantage compared to some of the other candidates, but I hope in the end it’s about ideas and it’s about character. I think the people are going to say, ‘Do we like this person? Do we like the stands he takes on issues that matter?'”

While he differs strongly with some some ap GOP orthodoxy these days, Moore said it was never in doubt that he’d run as a Republican.

“I’m a conservative,” he said. “I’m not always on board with everything my party does, but that’s where I land, on the conservative side of the political spectrum. I’ve never been a fan of Democratic policies.”

Adds Moore: “There are different political philosophies that conservatives and liberals have. On the left they trust the state, and on the right we tend to trust individuals and free markets and want less regulations.”

The 56-year-old Moore said he’s seen socialism up close – including when he studied in Tanzania as an undergraduate – and has taught enough socialism and Marxism to know that isn’t the path he wants his country going down.

“The older I get, the more I’m sure our founders got it pretty much right,” he said. “We’ve had issues with slavery and not always treating women right, but we need to protect the Constitution. Dictatorship, authoritarianism, socialism, communism – they all go to a bad place. It doesn’t end well.”

Moore said he’s “pretty hawkish” on China, though he stresses that he doesn’t want to be provocative.

“I just think we have to really prepare for what seems almost inevitable – the direction of their regime, what they’re spending on defense, the Belt Road,” he said, referring to a massive infrastructure project China has been building across much of the world. “We’re going to have a conflict with them. It may be Taiwan tomorrow, it could be years out, but we have to prepare.”

Noting that China is taking an asymmetric approach to potential conflict – investing in lower-cost tactics like cyber warfare – Moore says it would be folly to underestimate the rival.

“They’re going to be the most formidable competitor we’ve ever seen,” he said. “They’ve presented this illiberal, statist economy that does pretty well. They have played the naive western economies really, really well for a number of years. I think we have to be very, very vigilant and quite hawkish on China.”

While he criticizes Bennet for voting “in lock-step” with President Joe Biden, Moore says he doesn’t plan to get personal with his attacks.

“He seems like a really sensible guy,” Moore said. “The thing that bothers me about both sides is this mutual demonization – ‘they’re evil,’ ‘they’re idiots.’ That’s not true, and it’s hard on the family to be in politics. I have nothing but respect for Michael Bennet and a guy that’s done what he’s done.”

Still, Moore hews the partisan line on a host of issues, rattling off his positions with an occasional reference to former President Ronald Reagan” tossed in. 

“I’m pro-national defense, peace-through-strength like Reagan, pro-gun rights, pro-family and traditional values, pro-fiscal responsibility, pro-religious freedom, pro-school choice, pro-small and limited government, pro-free market and capitalism, anti-socialism, pro-business and pro-worker – I feel it’s a leftist narrative that there must be tension between businesses and workers, that’s leftist hogwash – pro-environment and pro-border control,” he said.

“I’m supporting a big tent approach to conservative politics in Colorado, bringing libertarians back in,” he added. “I want to unite the party and bring independents back across to vote conservative again. I think more than half of the people who live in Colorado are conservatives. They’re not Trump conservatives, but they’re conservatives.”

He acknowledges that his stance toward Trump could cost support in the Republican primary but insists that he won’t pull his punches.

“I’m going to be hated for saying this,” he said. “How do you deal with a Trump administration that really had good policies but had a person in office who was sometimes a bit out of control?”

Moore says that if he had been in the U.S. Senate in early 2020 and 2021, he would have “gone with Mitt Romney,” joining the Utah senator who was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in both of his impeachment trials.

“Based on my understanding, I really do think there was a real problem with him going to the president of Ukraine saying, ‘Hey, can you dig some stuff up on my opponent?’ And Jan. 6 – I think he’s got to be accountable for that. Even though I have great respect for Donald Trump, I think he was a bit out of control and did things that shouldn’t have been done. I’m not on board with that,” Moore said.

“That’s going to be a challenge,” he continued. “I think the Republican Party and conservatives in general have to come to terms with that: Is this the party of Trump or is it the Grand Old Party, the conservative party, beholden to no one person? This is not a cult of personality. So, that’s where I’d come down on those things.”

Moore said he understands many Republicans will disagree with him, but said he some will be glad to hear a candidate unafraid to speak his mind.

“If this stuff about Trump comes up in a debate, I’m going to say, ‘Do you want to win? Or do you want to turn the state over to the Democrats for the next 12 or 18 years?'”

Added Moore: “It’s a dangerous position to take in the Republican Party, but you have to stand up for the Constitution and say some things are not popular. I’m not in China anymore.”