DENVER – Republican gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton’s campaign released its first official advertisement Tuesday, with a nod to President Trump included, as candidates enter the final weeks before the June 26 primaries.
The advertisement touts Stapleton, who is in his second term as Colorado treasurer, as a “proven conservative” who “gets things done.”
The campaign spent an initial $700,000 on the advertisement for broadcast and cable in the lead-up to the primaries and could spend more on it, according to advertising trackers and the campaign, as it ended the last fundraising period with over $830,000 in the bank.
“As Colorado’s treasurer, I stopped the largest tax increase in state history and I led the fight against a single-payer health care system, and we won again,” Stapleton says in the ads – referring to the defeat of Amendment 66 in 2013 and the single-payer health care system proposal, Amendment 69, in 2016.
The advertisement also shows President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as Stapleton says: “I was the only treasurer in the country with the courage to support Donald Trump’s tax cuts.”
However, Missouri Treasurer Eric Schmitt backed the tax cuts and even made a trip to Washington to talk about the plan with President Trump, according to The Associated Press and Missourinet.
Stapleton also says he’ll “end these dangerous sanctuary city policies” if elected governor, and that he’ll “take the fight to the liberals and beat ‘em again.”
The ads come just weeks before Colorado voters receive their primary ballots, and as candidates try to separate themselves from one another either through policy or through verbal or advertising attacks.
Republican Victor Mitchell has already released two advertisements, and some of the Democrats have put out ads as well.
A Magellan Strategies pollreleased earlier this year, which looked at likely Republican primary voters, found that Stapleton was leading the GOP field among those who knew who they were going to vote for, and that Stapleton’s Republican opponents – Victor Mitchell and Doug Robinson – were lagging behind. Greg Lopez was not a choice included in the poll.
The poll also found that immigration was the top issue for those polled, which could be why Stapleton mentioned “sanctuary cities” in his ad. Some Republicans in Colorado have railed against what they see as “sanctuary city” policies in Denver and Boulder, though the cities have said those characterizations are wrong.
