Q4 2009 Fundraising Totals (Incumbent in Bold)

Michael Bennet - 1,149,091
Tom Wiens - 725,000
Jane Norton - 550,605
Ken Buck - 39,850

John Salazar - 187,160
Scott Tipton - 109,981
Bob McConnell - 12,471

Betsy Markey - 227,442
Cory Gardner - 197,553
Diggs Brown - 61,174
Tom Lucero - 25,824

Ryan Frazier - 218,824
Ed Perlmutter - 215,201
Lang Sias - 30,931

U.S. Senate

Michael Bennet's fundraising continues at a monumental pace and it is starting to look as if he will have a massive advantage no matter who the Republican nominee may be. Jane Norton once again posted strong numbers, though many observers found it troublesome she did not improve much over the last quarter's take.

Though the Wiens campaign is declining to say how much of the $725,000 they are claiming to have brought in came from the candidate himself, it appears safe to assume that Wiens followed through on his previous statement that he would be investing $500,000 of his money into his campaign. Regardless of where the money came from, this means Wiens now has a very well-financed primary campaign.

Ken Buck had an extremely disappointing quarter. The sole consolation here is the massive ad buy by the Campaign for Liberty that can free up some money that may have been allocated by the Buck campaign for media and divert it into organizational costs.

CD-3

Scott Tipton had a strong showing for his first month in the race. If he is able to keep up the pace he should be able to place the seat into play.

CD-4

Cory Gardner had another strong fundraising quarter. Despite being outraised by Makey, CD-4's Republican voter registration advantage means that Makey would have to be raising even more than she is to make it up. Gardner is strongly positioning himself as the leading candidate in both the primary and general elections.

At $61,174, Diggs Brown has enough money to mount a primary challenge, even if it is a long-shot. He will at least be able to afford a working campaign organization, which is more than what most other underdog candidates in these Republican primaries can say.

Tom Lucero again had a lackluster quarter, but even more damaging to his prospects than his low fundraising haul is his astounding 200% burn rate. When a campaign spends twice what they raised in a given quarter, it is a sure sign it is on it's last legs.

CD-7

Ryan Frazier had a strong fundraising quarter and stands as the only Colorado Republican challenger for federal office to outraise the Democratic incumbent. While a narrow victory, Frazier's take places what was expected to be a safe Democratic seat into play.

Ex-Democrat and Mark Udall supporter Lang Sias, despite starting fundraising at the beginning of November and having most of the quarter to fundraise, came in with a dismal $30,931. Nearly half of his money came from Washington DC, as opposed to Frazier who blew him out of the water and raised funds mostly from in-state, and $5,000 of that came from John McCain's PAC. While Sias gave the illusion of being a strong candidate with his McCain backing and much-touted Washington connections, after raising only $30,391 it is hard to see how he is even remotely serious. Sias' funding problems will become even more severe as he is rumored to be planning to bypass the grassroots by running a costly petition campaign in the coming months.

Tom Wiens is set to begin his campaign on Thursday. The AP reports:

Former state Sen. Tom Wiens (weens) of Douglas County has filed to run against Bennet. Bennet was appointed earlier this year and must stand for re-election in 2010.

Wiens says he'll start his campaign Thursday.

At least six Republicans are now competing for the chance to challenge Bennet. Others include former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck.

Notably the AP can't even keep track of all the candidates ("at least six"), underscoring the need for the Red Dawn Project to identify the viable contenders running for office in Colorado.

After taking the term "stealth campaign" to a new level, Tom Wiens has popped back up and is very serious about running for the United States Senate. Wiens says he will announce his candidacy in early November. Furthermore, Wiens tells the Colorado Statesman that he will place $500,000 of his own cash in:

Wiens anticipates raising as much as $8 million for his U.S. Senate bid.

“It’d be tough to beat my Rolodex. In fact, I’ll put my Rolodex up against those Washington insiders any day of the week,” said Wiens, who added that he has a 100-member campaign finance team.

“We’re prepared to put a half-million dollars into the campaign,” said Diana Wiens, who mused about the imminent campaign announcement during a reception last Friday at The Pinnacle Club hosted by the Leadership Program of the Rockies. She said she views the investment as start-up capital.

We're back to a three-way contest for the Senate nomination from the sounds of it.

Former state senator Tom Wiens appears to be set to run for United States Senate, confirming speculation following some of his earlier moves. An email he sent out today reads in part:

Just a few days ago I filed the papers for the Tom Wiens for U.S. Senate Exploratory Committee, Inc.  I'm emailing you because I want to know if I can count on you to help me bring Washington back in line with Main Street Colorado.  As a small businessman/rancher and former Colorado State Senator, I have the experience to take on Washington insiders and deliver results, not excuses.  I am asking you to right now, go to www.tomwiens2010.com and give me your thoughts and show your support by making a contribution.

As we've pointed out before, one of Wiens' greatest challenges getting in this late will be finding professional political operatives not already locked down by one of the numerous other high profiles Republican candidates (other Senate candidates, gubernatorial candidates, treasurer candidates, and CD-4). Assuming he can assemble an organization, he has the potential to be a serious contender for the nomination. He sounds confident that his donor base is separate enough from the group that John Cornyn and others were attempting to lock down for Jane Norton that he can be financially viable.

Ken Buck issued the following statement:

Ken Buck confirmed today that it's full steam ahead for his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Buck said, "While other candidates may still jump in the Senate race, one thing is clear - our party's nominee will be chosen by Colorado's grassroots Republicans, not by political operatives in Washington D.C."
Buck said he has been deeply gratified by the strong response to his campaign from literally thousands of Coloradans over the past few months. "We have campaign leadership in every county in the state," he said.
Buck declared that his campaign has never been about him personally but rather about the critical importance of taking back the U.S. Senate seat from Michael Bennet.
Colorado deserves a strong independent Senator who will do the right thing for Colorado. Instead Buck claimed, "the appointed Senator Bennet has turned out to be just another rubber stamp for the big spending, big government liberals in Congress."

Ryan Frazier's campaign is also undaunted by the NRSC and will continue to push forward.

More details will emerge in the coming days surrounding the circumstances of the NRSC's meddling. Had Norton and individuals in DC involved succeeded in "clearing the field," Rep. Tom Tancredo was reportedly prepared to enter the race. The reasons for this will become clear as more details emerge.

UPDATE: The Denver Post reports this tidbit:

Buck said it was "Washington, D.C., insiders" who were behind the "shenanigans" to try to influence the race.

Buck said he made a brief phone call to Norton this morning to tell her he was still in the race. He said she said, " 'Thanks for calling' and that was the extent of our conversation."

UPDATE 2: Tom Wiens is also said to be unswayed by the Cornyn/Beauprez/Owens/McCain putsch.

Fox 31 reports on Tom Wiens' imminent entry into the Senate race:

DENVER, Colo. - Former state Sen. Tom Wiens, R-Castle Rock, has filed papers to form an exploratory committee to run for U.S. Senate in 2010.

"There seems to be a lot of support around the state, so we've formed a committee and we'll see how we do raising money," said Wiens, who left the state legislature after the 2008 session.

Wiens plans to decide whether to launch an official campaign some time around Labor Day. If he does so, he'll join an already crowded field of Republicans vying for their party's nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, the former Denver Public Schools Superintendent who was appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter in January to replace Ken Salazar.

Former state Senator Tom Wiens appears to be jumping into an increasingly crowded field for United States Senate. On Monday, Wiens took the first step towards running by filing Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of State for the "Tom Wiens For U.S. Senate Exploritory (sic) Committee, Inc."

This move typically precedes the formal FEC filing of a campaign committee which will likely take place in the coming days. Wiens had previously been aggressively floating his name for the gubernatorial race since at least 2005.

UPDATE: An amended filing correctly spelling "Exploratory" has now been filed.

Preliminary results are out for the extensive survey of over 600 Republican primary voters conducted by Ben DeGrow of Mount Virtus and Michael Sandoval of Slapstick Politics. The top-line results are below and detailed crosstabs and analysis will be released next week, so stay tuned.

July 2009 Colorado's Political Temperature Results

Vote for your favorite gubernatorial candidate. Poll closes in one week.

Poll closed - results here

Since the unknown candidate who had his supporters spam the last poll into oblivion has decided to grace the senate race with his presence instead, I don't forsee any problems with rampant repeat voting this time around.

The Grand Junction Sentinel reports that Sen. Josh Penry and Scott McInnis are continuing to engage in what can only be described as a high-stakes game of "chicken" surrounding the 2010 gubernatorial nomination:

McInnis said Tuesday he still has political ambitions and, “My focus is more on the governor’s seat.”

Penry said he has received “a lot of encouragement from legislators, party activists and just unsolicited e-mails from people who want new energy and fresh leadership.”

Once the session is over, Penry said, he’ll discuss it with his family.

Rumors generally run amok as the party’s central committee prepares to gather, as it is doing this weekend in Denver, McInnis said.

“This week, everybody is running for everything,” he said.

Penry and McInnis have been close allies in the past but have been somewhat at odds in previous years. Both of their bases of strongest support overlap on the Western Slope as would many of their donors. As a result, if both were to run it is highly likely that neither would be able to garner enough support to win the nomination.

Tom Wiens and Marc Holtzman are probably very pleased by this development.

TOM WIENS APPEARS ALMOST CERTAIN TO JUMP INTO GOVERNOR RACE: Wiens tells Jeremy Pelzer at 5280 that he is "doing everything possible to organize my life so that I can run for governor in 2010."

SENATE DEMS TRY TO CUT EXISTING PROGRAMS TO FUND NEW PET PROJECTS: "Majority Democrats relented on GOP efforts by Sen. Nancy Spence, of Centennial, to stop raids on a fund for breast and cervical cancer prevention and treatment as well as a fund serving those with traumatic brain injury. The majority also backed down when Sen. Ken Kester, of Las Animas, rose to the defense of a fund that helps communities improve water quality." (Colorado Senate News)

UPDATE: This poll has been taken offline after upwards of 200 votes were logged from Indonesian IP addresses on behalf of Cleve Tidwell. Apparently my warning went unheeded since the perpetrators may or may not have been able to speak English and may not have understood it. They ended up doing exactly what I didn't want them to, and that was to spam the hell out of the poll and then plaster the results everywhere claiming it was a great show of "grassroots support." Spare me the emails claiming that all the votes came from supporters because I can tell which one came from Indonesian servers and proxy servers (the vast majority of them), so please don't insult anyone's intelligence further by pretending that this a victory.

As an aside, if you really are that hell-bent on spamming a poll on this site, please go to the poll host's website instead of this one. When a lone Indonesian server refreshes this site 500 times in the course of 15 minutes it just looks like a denial-of-service attack on my end.

A WARNING TO SUPPORTERS OF A CERTAIN FLEDGLING CANDIDATE: When you vote, your IP address is logged and I've worked enough in IT to recognize when someone is hammering away from proxy servers. I can tell definitively when someone is spamming a poll in favor of someone (as opposed to the blindingly obvious circumstansial evidence of a candidate who trailed in last place all week suddenly jumping to first in a manner of hours). As with one of my previous polls, I am more than happy to toss out your repeat votes and embarass your candidate by pointing out what you are doing so please think twice. When Ron Paul's supporters used tactics like this, it only annoyed the bloggers who were targetted and it is still just as annoying.

Vote for your favorite Republican gubernatorial candidate out of these five likely candidates. This poll will expire in one week (Feb. 19th at 12:00 PM).

Feel free to syndicate the poll to your own blog to help get an even clearer picture of conservative activists:

Bentley Rayburn and Mike Coffman Campaigns Start Petition Drives

The campaigns of Bentley Rayburn in CD-5 and Mike Coffman in CD-6 both initiated petition drives this week to gain access to the August primary ballot. Mike Coffman's campaign is providing an online volunteer form for those interested in signing or circulating ballot petitions.

Sen. Tom Wiens Retires, Eyes 2010 Gubernatorial Campaign

State Senator Tom Wiens surprised everyone this week when he announced he would not be seeking re-election to his safe Republican seat. Wiens has long been rumored to be eyeing a run for the 2010 Republican nomination for Governor and this move is seen by many to be confirmation of his intentions.

Colorado Federation of College Republicans Elect New Chair

Over the weekend, the Colorado Federation of College Republicans elected Erica Castelo of the University of Denver as their new chair. The College Republicans will play a major role in providing volunteer support in this election year to the McCain and Schaffer campaigns as well as local candidates.