DENVER – President Trump endorsed state Treasurer Walker Stapleton Wednesday in the Republican’s bid to become Colorado’s next governor.
“Walker Stapleton is running as the highly respected Republican Candidate for Governor of the Great State of Colorado. His credentials and talents are impeccable. He has my complete and total Endorsement!” Trump said in a tweet Wednesday morning.
Walker Stapleton is running as the highly respected Republican Candidate for Governor of the Great State of Colorado. His credentials and talents are impeccable. He has my complete and total Endorsement!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2018
Trump’s endorsement of Stapleton in Colorado’s governor’s race, where Stapleton faces Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat, comes less than a month from the midterm election day on Nov. 6 and as two polls show Stapleton trailing Polis.
Stapleton hasn’t been shy about his support for Trump. In his first official campaign advertisement, released in May, Stapleton used images of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and said, falsely, that he was “the only treasurer in the country with the courage to support Donald Trump’s tax cuts.”
In another ad, he said he’d “stand with Donald Trump to get illegal aliens who commit crimes deported.” Stapleton also has previously said he would campaign with Trump if the president offered, though it is still unclear if that will happen—the president does not have any trips to Colorado on his schedule currently.
Trump’s endorsement of Stapleton comes as two different polls completed last month show the two-term Republican treasurer trailing Polis, a five-term congressman from Boulder who won an endorsement from Former President Barack Obama earlier this year.
A poll released at the beginning of the month, done by Colorado-based research firms Magellan Strategies and Keating Research, found Polis up 7 percentage points with a 4 percent margin of error.
And on Wednesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Colorado Health Foundation released a poll done in August and September that showed Polis leading by 11 percentage points, with 15 percent of respondents undecided.
Both campaigns released new advertisements last week in the blitz up to Nov. 6, and the candidates have been debating one another across the state. They will square off in the final debate before the election in the Oct. 23 debate hosted by Denver7 and The Denver Post at the University of Denver.
Stapleton’s campaign spokesperson, Jerrod Dobkin, used Sanders' upcoming appearance for Polis in contrast to Trump's endorsement of Stapleton in a statement.
"President Trump supports Walker because he knows Walker will fight for hardworking Coloradans every day," Dobkin said. "Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, is campaigning for Jared Polis because they both support expanding government and raising taxes. Bernie Sanders and Jared Polis are the poster boys of the radical left who's policies would hurt Colorado families."
Polis responded in a series of tweets:
“It’s no wonder Donald Trump is supporting Walker Stapleton so enthusiastically – because he could have asked for a better yes-man for his destructive policies,” Polis said. “Whether it’s taking away people’s health care or selling off our public lands, Stapleton has shown that he’s more than happy to do Trump’s bidding, even when it hurts Coloradans.”
