Spending on primaries for the state House by independent expenditure committees is nearing $2 million, the kind of spending you usually only see in a general election.

Much of that spending reflects the division between Democratic party elites versus the party’s more progressive wing, as well as the division among the House Republican caucus’s hard right and more moderate factions.

At least 19 IECs in the past month have put money into General Assembly primary races, with those funds going almost entirely to state House candidates. There are 24 open seats in the House for the November general election, but the primary races are almost all safe seats for Democrats or Republicans.

The hottest race on the left is in House District 6, the primary between former House Dem legislative aide Katie March and progressive activist Elisabeth Epps. Between the two, spending is at just under $270,000, but it favors March at more than $173,000.

Almost all of March’s money comes from one group: Democrats for Progressive Leadership. According to TRACER, Colorado’s campaign finance database, the IEC gets its money from the “We Mean Business Coalition,” which lists an address in Wheat Ridge and which doesn’t identify its donors. 

The Colorado Working Families Party IEC, which gets its major contributions from the Service International Employees Union, is backing Epps with just under $100,000 in spending. 

Another of the races with hot spending: House District 34, currently held by Rep. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat who’s trying to make the leap to the state Senate.

The Democratic candidates are Jenny Willford and Sam Nizam, and IECs have so far spent at least $228,413, a sum larger than normally seen in a general election contest, much less a primary. The spending favors Nizam, with support from the Colorado Democracy Project, which gets its money from former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry, and Voters for Colorado’s Future, which is run by former House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver.

Backing Willford is the Colorado Labor Action, which has received more than $682,000 from the Colorado Education Association and SEIU, a union affiliated with the state employee union. 

In Aurora-based House District 42, Colorado Labor Action is also backing Democratic Rep. Mandy Lindsay of Aurora in the rematch with Gail Pough from last January’s vacancy committee election to the tune of more than $88,000.

On the GOP side, two races are seeing the most spending so far.

The first is in House District 51, the seat held by House Minority Leader Hugh McKean of Loveland. IECs backing McKean include the conservative education IEC Ready Colorado Action Fund; a new IEC, Making Colorado Affordable Again, which received contributions from Ready Colorado; and Prosperity through Property Rights, an IEC with a long history of backing moderate Republicans. Spending to back McKean totals at least $282,182.

His opponent, former House GOP comms director Austin Hein who worked for McKean’s predecessor, has only received about $4,000 from two IECs, both tied to anti-abortion groups.

IECs backing McKean are also spending in favor of Republican candidates for two House districts currently represented by the hard right of the GOP caucus. In House District 45, term-limited former House Minority Leader Patrick Neville’s district, IECs such as Making Colorado Affordable Again and Ready Colorado are backing Lisa Frizell or opposed to Bill Jack, her primary opponent. So far, the IECs have spent $286,659 to back Frizell, more than they have to back McKean.

In House District 44, currently held by term-limited Littleton Republican Rep. Kim Ransom, IEC spending to the tune of $113,549 favors Anthony Hartsook over his primary opponent, Terry Dodd, and from the same IECs backing McKean and Frizell.

Rep. Mary Bradfield, R-Colorado Springs, who struggled to get onto the ballot, is backed by the same IECs in her race against Karl Dent and from the same IECs. 

There is one more major reporting period left before the June 28 primary, with a deadline of June 22 and reporting on June 27.