The race to replace retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs is getting crowded.

Conservative podcast host and political strategist Jeff Crank threw his hat in the GOP’s 5th Congressional District primary on Wednesday, joining the state’s Republican Party chairman and a long-serving state lawmaker, with more likely to emerge in coming weeks.

The solidly Republican, El Paso County-based seat unexpectedly became open when Lamborn announced last week that he would not seek reelection to a 10th term this year.

The 56-year-old Crank, who ran twice against Lamborn in primaries more than a decade ago, told Colorado Politics that the time is right to make another run for Congress.

“I’ve spent the last 17 years continuing to do good work in public policy and advancing freedom and liberty,” Crank said. “And I think our country is in trouble, where we need good people who are going to go to Washington, DC and are going to be productive and going to try and get control of the massive federal debt that we have, get control of the overall budget so that every year we’re not adding trillions and trillions of dollars in debt, get control of our borders.”

Crank said the Biden administration’s economic record – “seeing the inflation and what it’s doing to just average families” – helped seal the deal.

“So, for me, that was kind of a calling, and I looked at the race and just felt like this would be a good time to serve, and that I had a good chance at doing it,” he said.

If things go according to plan, Crank said he also intends to help salvage the Republican brand in Colorado.

He said his perspective and communication skills set him apart in what could grow into a large primary field.

“I’m a conservative,” Crank said. “I’m always going to be pro-life. I’m a gun owner and a strong advocate of the Second Amendment, and I’m always going to be that way. That’s just not going to change. I’m not going to compromise on those issues. But the way we talk about them is really important. And I think that the way that I will talk about them will help define a difference between myself and my opponents.”

Crank first ran for the congressional seat in 2006, when Joel Hefley, the Republican who had represented the district for 20 years, decided to retire. At the time a top aide to Hefley, Crank finished a close second in a bitter, six-way primary behind Lamborn, who jumped to Congress from the state legislature. Two years later, Crank and the previous race’s third-place finisher, retired Air Force Major Gen. Bentley Rayburn, couldn’t agree which of them was best suited to unseat the incumbent, so both ran and both lost.

In the years since, Crank hosted a local talk radio show on KVOR-AM, worked as Colorado director for national free-market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity and founded a political consulting firm. More recently, he’s produced a conservative podcast, The Jeff Crank Show, that has amassed millions of listeners.

“We need somebody who’s a good communicator to be able to articulate those messages and do it with a smile on your face and be presentable in the way that they interact with voters and citizens,” he said.

“I think we need to do a better job of talking and framing the issues in that way, so that people understand we’re not just anti-tax, although I am against tax increases and will always be,” he said. “But I think we need to define ourselves in a better way, about being able to remove government-imposed barriers and keeping government limited so that individuals can flourish.”

He stressed the urgency of restoring the Republican Party’s tarnished image.

“The people of Colorado continue to show that they support the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, that they are fiscally conservative, that they want the government to keep their hands off of their Second Amendment rights, for instance,” he said. “That continues to be a streak that you see in Colorado, and you certainly see it in El Paso County, but I think we’ve ruined our brand as Republicans to only focus on a few things and, heck, we had a lot of Republicans that were supporting tax increases. And things they didn’t stand for – for limited government, and if there needed to be more money for something, try and find it within government instead of going and always asking the single mom for more money. So, I think we’ve got to redefine who we are.”

Crank said if Republicans can build a better communication operation to articulate those principles, El Paso County will “continue to be a rock-solid, red Republican district.”

“But we’ve got to do a better job of defining that and stop trying to be divisive, stop trying to be about control and controlling things within your own party and intra-party fights. That kind of stuff has to end.”

In the days since Lamborn’s surprise announcement, the primary has already drawn Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams, a former three-term state lawmaker, and state Sen. Bob Gardner, an attorney and Air Force veteran. Others considering a run for the seat include former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, state Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, former U.S. Senate candidate and Olympian Eli Bremer, El Paso County Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez and former El Paso County GOP Vice Chairman Karl Schneider.

Five Democrats and a handful of third-party and unaffiliated candidates are also running in the district, which is among the state’s most solidly Republican seats.

Precinct caucuses are March 7. The primary is June 25.